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• Two Lines for Peace
“Here is an idea: Write a two-line poem that will foster peace in the world.” --Pixordia
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I WRITE
A lone candle kept vigil
through the night of a day
set aside for prayer
by leaders of a nation in mourning.
I forgot it there,
thinking I had extinguished its flame.
Still it burned
as I slept.
In the face of the greatest tragedy
I had ever witnessed,
I had few words.
Any thoughts poetic had flown.
Perhaps they crashed and burned.
For a time they died.
As for Lazarus, God came four days late,
to resurrect the life of poetry,
the will to write,
in me.
No, I did not die,
only parts of me, inside.
The resurrection was symbolic, spiritual.
I am no phoenix, no angel, no saint.
I am a poet. I write.
DreamboatAnnie (Ann Reinhardt Cantu)
AN AMERICAN HARVEST
The shadows seem longer,
the sky, somehow more blue;
the final petals dangle from the roses,
sunflowers hang with heavy heads.
We crawl into Autumn, a nation in mourning --
ripped from the slumber of summertime
the moment airplanes scarred September’s sky.
Today, remembrance waves from every street corner,
and again, one season begins the fall into another --
Like the trees, we soon will reveal our true selves.
It is harvest time here in America;
We will reap, and we will weep.
Our tears will salt the earth.
Tara A. Elliott
FROM SOUTH AFRICA TO YOU ALL
11 September 2001
Somewhere in a South African forest garden
the sky is weeping for America
through a backdrop of dismal grey
on to darkened bark and gloomy green
and the mournful silence is broken only
by celestial tears dripping
on to my verandah.
OWLSA1
911
We’ve sat captive in your chairs,
The fear growing,
The malingering unknown...
Why are they doing this?
Where are we going?
And the carry-on bags
Carefully packed, carefully
Placed safely in the
Overhead storage compartments...
What was for dinner?
Who will sit next to me?
That and the safe plan to
Be somewhere we really never
Needed to be... Oh, God,
What have you done to me?
We don’t know, but we were there
And we will follow you forever.
We’ve stood beside your desks,
And felt the shudder, too far
Away from tender Earth, and
How it matters, if we carefully
Find our way down, and
If we don’t? How much will it matter?
And the chaos and more shaking,
And the flames, and the sounds of
Substance quaking, cracking...
The facts we were preparing,
The solvent risks of bargaining,
What does it matter?
Why here? Why are we taken?
We don’t know, but we will
Follow you, wherever you go...
We’ve taken to running,
Just to reach you, just
To save what we could find
Left of you, we’ve cast our
Own souls on the flames
To diminish the rage, to
Dampen the tinder there
Engulfing you...
And some, not knowing the danger coming,
Have gone with courage, have gone
With you, and we have gone with them...
We shall follow them too.
And we are there, there with
Your love, still searching
For you, never knowing,
Trying to find you...
Countless in number,
Still trying to count you.
Here or there, digging through
Rubble, just to reach whatever
We’ve known of you, the
Arrested heart of the conversation,
Weeping to finish what we needed
To say to you, our arms grasping,
Reaching for anything that might
Bring us to you...and if we
Find you or not, we are there
Hand in hand...
Following you.
Together, from the purple mountains
To the shining seas, we will bleed
For you, resurrect you in compassion
For the worst that was done to you...
And the pain, we will take our arms
Around each other, and hold it away...
Until we see you again, no,
We don’t know, and
We don’t know when...
But we know where, come hell
Or heaven, we’ll follow you there.
Gray Squirrel
NEW YORK NUMBED
The World Trade Center is gone--
The legs of New York City
Have been blown away!
Its blood pours into the Hudson,
Its children struck dumb.
They stumble home in ashes--
coughing up the towers that
once protected them.
Ground zero is now a canyon;
yesterday, a dream.
There is no sudden waking
from that spendor in the sun
that was sacrificed.
This, the old impetus for war;
This york, new no more.
MARLINTHEFIS
AMERICA’S COLORS
Billowing Black Smoke, Sky Blue Tears,
Colors a coward would have US bear.
Surely sorrowful days ahead of us lie.
But our indomitable spirit won’t be stilled.
Yes. We will mourn and will bury our dead.
Unseen enemy; yours is a hollow victory.
From the ashes America’s Phoenix will rise.
For the colors we bear are Red, White and Blue!
KRITTERKAT
THE SPIRIT OF AMERICA
It is easy to slap, but it takes
Great courage to offer the other cheek.
Even the strongest man on earth
A well aimed stab or a shot
That’s all it takes to kill.
But not even powerful bombs
Or planes that crash into towers
Can kill that spirit burning
In the hearts of men and women.
This spirit is God’s other name
Quintessence of all those qualities
Which we mortals call as follows
Love, Liberty, Equality and Justice.
Its not confined to a single place.
Its there in the air we breathe.
Its there in the way we think.
It’s hidden in the soil we tread.
And everywhere one can imagine.
It’s enshrined in our very being.
Cowardly acts of terrorism
Cannot quench it but only kindle
It will burn brighter and brighter till
In the inferno of its holy radiance
Fundamentalists melt into oblivion.
BIDELIA1 (Milena Woodland)
PUNISHMENT NOT ENOUGH
(dedicated to the World Trade Center victims)
“Don’t mean nothin’,”
Once commonly phrased.
Now a novel somethin’,
The Center’s been razed.
A horrific event,
Hard to accept.
The devil’s hell-bent.
We couldn’t intercept
Evil on a wing.
Dark angels sing.
Not unique or new,
But in our own yard.
Now war sees you.
You’re taking it hard.
Make a new decision
As airborne evil nears?
Got foxhole religion
Blurred by burning fears?
We’ve got to do more –
We must teach peace.
If we don’t want war,
We must make war cease!
NAMVETPOET (Allan L. Shemke)
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