Saturday, September 20, 2008

Poem for 9/11/08

9/11/2008

it's been awhile now
since the morning air burned w/sadness

rising plumes of smoke
screaming silver death
& clouds of dust

what god awful thoughts of hell bent minds
that fateful day, riding the bus
talking to strangers, the universe seeming to be
on the edge of irrevocable disrepair

the t.v.'s were on everywhere
no one talked of anything else

we were united in our shock
& disbelief

the twins freedom & enterprise
stand no more;
a scar on history
a sign of misery
forever

what human element
can be factored
what hope can be mustered
for those so desolate
& w/ out hope, or meaning
must succumb to hatred's
fatal grip?

still i rue the way the ragged, proud peoples
scurried after the rats with lusts of vengeance
just as the rats had hoped

the scrawny playground kid who throws rocks at the bullies,
because he wants attention

they were craving attention, any kind of attention
& we gave it to them, 10-fold
chasing after delusional Jedi's
in their rebel caverns, & grimy scenes.

silver linings abound in liberated burkas
the undoing of tyrants
oh the spoils of war
& all her paradoxical glory

can it happen any other way?
could peace be fought & paid for with
non-violence

could the slaves have walked free
not because of Shiloh & Sherman's scorched earth
but by a cold war of bluffing & cool detente?

what implication than for future lives
must bombs of infinite destruction be
forever a possible antidote for mankind.
earth's cursed parasite, or sons of Gods.

We so flatter ourselves, but in the annals of time
what are we but a short term event
in the life of planet, born before time

like the Egyptians, Greeks or the Neanderthals
our fates will studied, our lives will pondered
& represented by half-truths & theories as to why.