the images are staggeringly horrific. like scenes from an end-of-the-world flick. the last days. i've never been to new orleans tho like most i'm enchanted by its food, music, history and mysticism. i can only echo the anger i feel here of the piddly response by the u.s. govt. to the victims in the gulf regions. i am ashamed, pissed, and floored.

i know only one poet in Louisiana, skip fox, and i just sent an email asking if he is okay. i read the news and watch the images on tv, and my heart constricts. the best indictments i've read against shrub and his cronies are by mark young and alexg.

such a disaster can happen here in sac. we are in the valley, a flood plain, surrounded by two rivers, the american and the sacramento, which are shored up by a system of levies and the folsom dam. there have been two major floods in the last 20 yrs. one in '86 when the levies in some of the more rural areas did breach. my family house was 3 blocks away from the american, and the streets flooded. it was pandemonium. i thought the levy broke and i abandoned my washed-out car for home. but it was only the street drainage systems backing up from so much water. and we were okay, a bit buzzed by the adrenaline.

the second time was in 1997 and the flooding was less corrosive. and the levies remained intact, for the most part.

we live in a flood plain. that is one of the reasons the ca great central valley is so rich from agriculture, deep, crazily abundant and rich alluvial soil. but it would flood almost every year until the levies were built in the late 19th century. the houses in the central city and midtown are all built with the first floor about 10 to 13 feet from the ground. old sac, now a tourist trap, along with downtown was raised to its present level again late in the 19th century because of the frequent flooding. there are numerous underground tunnels, hidden jewels that are capsules from another time, that are now being rapidly destroyed for development. this city has been drenched with great loss of life. it will happen again, that's for sure.

there is a slight elevation located in midtown, an area of sac known for its eclectic style, its victorian homes, its funkiness, its gay community. anna and i lived near this hill for about a year in our 2nd ever apartment. the hill was a gathering place for the poor who could not leave the city in times of flooding. it is called poverty ridge.