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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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NEW YORK IS BURNING
When drips of terror hit the pavement
Of humanity we can find words to
Show our revulsion, but when horror
Becomes a doomsday deluge of blood,
…Whispering silence.
O there will be odious TV intellectual
Apologists pointing out that this deed of
Utter violence was done in the name
Of the people for the huddled, starving
Masses. Balderdash! I say. A tyrant seeks
Power to enslave people to his will and
To satisfy his bloodthirsty ego.
No freedom can be bought, no peace
Found in the bleak landscape of death.
Soon an echo of revenge will grow
Louder, more innocent people shall die,
Mostly the defenseless and hungry,
While across the blue sky black winged
Angels fly.
OSKARTHETHIR
HOW IRONY WORKS
Office Worker:
I have taken care to dress
in my best career wear
Up early to shower
and to apply my make-up
Nicely perfumed and hair done.
I am never late for work
Pick up a cappuccino on the way
Arrive at my desk on time
The start of another day
I take a sip and stare out the window
but Oh God! that plane is flying too low
It is crashing toward me...
Airline Stewardess:
Just a routine flight
I greet my passengers
one by one
Most smile as they board
warmed by my cheerful Welcome
So much to do as
we prepare for take-off
I do the usual safety demonstration
Although my job is risky
I have complete faith in my Captain
“The Fasten Seat Belt sign is off ”
“Feel free to move about the cabin”
All of a sudden a passenger has
grabbed me from behind
And I am living a nightmare...
Airline passenger:
I woke up early to make my flight on time
Packed for my trip last night so
there was no last minute rush
My cab arrived like clockwork
I board my aircraft
Can’t wait to see my friends when they
will meet me at the airport.
“What? I don’t believe this
We have been hi-jacked enroute”
I do “so not want to be here.”
“I can’t call home -- I didn’t bring my cell phone”
My, we’re flying low
It looks like the New York skyline
Will we get out of this alive?
I hope so.............
The Fireman:
I climb the stairs
against the mainstream
Brushing shoulders
with evacuees
“It’s my job” so I push on
I run the checklist in my mind
of my rescue plan
So many up there need me
I hope I am on time...
The Highjacker:
I am cold eyed and steely
None will control me with their smile
I am on a mission of destruction
Past the first checkpoint
with no obstruction
I eye the airhostess
Does she see my elation??
Her time will come!!
Months of preparation...
None can stand in my way
My hatred has festered
from my prayers, every day
“Death to America”
then...................
These lives collide in a way never imagined...
with thousands of others.
PIXORDIA (Suzanne Delaney)
THIS DAY
9.11.01
A shower of human debris rains
shattered remnants
of all we thought we were, tears
stain my mother’s cheeks
this day, she was reminded
of all that has proven too easy to forget.
of all the atrocities
committed in the name of God
of the ease with which we bend
his words to our will, justifying
our own salvation, shaping
the darkness inherent in our own spirit.
This day
all things take on hidden meanings
a hint of accent in a stranger’s voice
congregation of the faithful
or the sky midday
so terribly blue so
eerily still.
This day
an era has come to an end
and in the face of our future
the president prays
God remains unmoved
and we all
share our own silence.
Frank Levato
TERROR: A LAMENTATION
How forlorn lies our sweet city,
Once so foursquare and indomitable!
Now the sky is filled with our blood,
And our streets with bits of blue sky.
The whole world is gone topsy-turvy.
The city’s heart lies still as a stone.
Our fresh green brimming boulevards
Are landscapes of white-dusted death.
Our golden bazaars are blasted to pieces,
Our silver has rained down as melted bullets.
Oh Lord, our very breakfast teacups
Have shot daggered shards into our hearts.
Our fine life, our comforts, our routine,
Wear the rags now of wandering beggars.
The hearts of wives and husbands,
Mothers and fathers, lovers and sons,
Are plunged in a place so dark not even
Your light, the light of the Creation,
Can penetrate to give warmth and solace.
Where are you, God of great healing?
Great God, you seem now like an Enemy!
You are the worst foe of man on this Earth!
When after struggle we attain some comfort,
You break our bodies with falls and sickness.
When after much life we reach some understanding,
You afflict our minds with increased forgetting.
Now you have torn our pride from the sky,
You have plunged our plans into a searing fire.
After blessing us with the love of others,
And blessing us with your miraculous love,
You have retreated like a clever enemy,
Who sows a terrible, gnawing, despair.
The windows of our buildings are ablaze,
And the leaves of our trees are fallen as ash.
The skin of our bodies is peeled away,
And our souls are silent as cracked bells.
The ones whose love was our living breath,
Are exploded, or awfully pressed, into nothing.
Great Lord of Love and Creation,
Why did you make the mountains, only to fall?
Why did you create the oceans, only to boil?
Why light, Great God? Why beauty?
Why bravery, or the kiss of mothers?
Where are You today amidst our suffering?
In the awesome sky of our new autumn,
The terror is to think you are not there.
DOUGLASMCGIL
NAMING, NINE ONE ONE O ONE
You can shake our buildings, but not our ground
We will not fall with you,
You, who we shall name, collectively, only Shame
For you deserve no rite so dignified
as human naming
defilers of your mothers’ gift to nourish and bear
scourges to your fathers, your countries, your gods
Let us name, instead, the innocent dead
They who did not seek to succor hatred by sending it on the wing
who did not purge themselves of painful internal fires
by fanning
then loosing them, unchecked and unbounded
who did not delude themselves with the unclean hope
that they could be favored by some Supreme Power.
We honor their humility.
May these 23 represent thousands:
Benito Valentin
Isaias Riveras
Captain John Ogonowski
Tonyell McDay
Jennifer Y. Wong
Oscar Nesbitt
Arlene Babakitis
Jason Defazio
Manuel Emilio Mejia
Giovanna "Gennie" Gambale
Yeneneh Betru
George Patrick McLaughlin
Rena Sam-Dinnoo
Harry Ramos
Jody Nicolos
First Deputy William M. Feehan
Stuart T. Meltzer
Brian Sweeney
Thomas Burnett
Mark Bingham
Jeremy Glick
Shannon Daigle
David Brandhorst
Let us name this day Courage.
We refuse to sew salves from the skins of your women
to suture wounds with fibers of your strong men
to quench thirst for balance with the blood of your children
Let us name this day Patience.
Let us call ourselves pilgrims
seeking secrets to cultivation
of the blossoming of the best of human spirit
Let us name this day Reflection.
Self-examination is not named guru or priest, bodhisattva or rabbi.
Leadership is not named prince or president, ayatollah or emperor.
Understanding is not Yousif or Giuseppi or Joey.
Goodness is not Maria, Mary, Marie.
Character is neither minister nor medicine man.
Restraint is not named O’Brien or Goldstein or Chang.
Let us name this day Compassion.
Smiths and Farhadis
Yamamotos, Townsends, and Choudhurys
Garcias, Reinhardts, MacNabbs
Johnsons and Czyzewskis
DeAngelos, Rousseaus
VanDervoorts, Ujifusas, Chos
Romanovs, Abdul-Maliks, Thibodeaux
Kablaouis and Kabirs and Singhs
Abeygunawardanas and Kittipondajas
Joneses and El-Amranis:
Let us name this day Responsibility.
Pray for forgiveness from the women of Afghanistan
who warned us even with mouths sewn shut,
arms tied down,
feet frozen
urging, "Remember the Jews,"
crying in whispers, "Why have you forsaken us?"
until, souls sucked dry, fingers failed
they took to beds to wait to die.
We did not care to care enough.
Let us name this day Integrity.
Stand with our Muslim sisters & brothers
who grasp and bolster
the true scriptures of their religion
whose understanding
requires serenity in humiliation
peace in degradation
Let us name this day Empathy.
Shame, you shall be transformed or destroyed
not by unfocused conflagration
but by force precisely aimed
spirit creatively shared
energy patiently tamed
Let us name this day Perseverence.
Your plans are already shrunken, shriveled:
You shall not lead us into temptation to evil
for we know:
blame is not righteousness
the export of terror is not power
indiscriminate violence is not an Act of God.
Let us name this day Enlightenment.
(In remembrance, hope, and honor. lv, nv, usa 9/18/01)
ARTRUEHLSAGA
TICK-TICK
The planet -- released
from frozen moments witnessing
that infinite instant when
seven thousand souls rose
up to meet their Gods --
remembered where it was
and wishing to be somewhere else
simply stopped spinning
and wondered: when
it could count time again
would there be time enough?
LANDSBERRY (SHBerry)
NO GREATER LOVE
NO GREATER Love has one
“I know we are all going to die”
“Three of us are going to do something about it”
than to lay down his life....
last words spoken
to a loved one
....taken
six degrees of separation
a child’s cheek kissed
for those
who call.... Daddy unaswered
NO GREATER LOVE
SCUDDLE
TRIAL OF THE OPPRESSORS
I dreamt I saw the oppressors
Face the pain they did inflict,
Ruthlessly murdered innocents,
spewing religious rhetoric.
Throughout all time and history,
There have been these greedy men,
Caring nothing for compassion,
Nor preservation of the land.
They stood before their victims,
A faceless crowd no more;
Realized the time had come
To settle up the score.
They saw women by the hundreds
Fling themselves into the icy sea,
Choosing this, instead of fire,
In defiant unity.
And ships that bore the pain
of a race of men once free;
They saw the damage done
By their acts of tyranny.
The great bald eagle heard the lies
Ones with forked tongues spoke,
Witnessed crimes on native people,
And the taking of their hope.
These men they saw the numbers
Tattooed upon the arms,
Of an innocent race of people,
Who never caused them harm.
As they stood before Earth’s Children,
Sorrow glistened in their eyes,
Truth of the injury they had done,
They sadly realized.
For when we hurt another
Or mistreat the Earth so fair,
There will always come a time,
When we pay for the shame we bare.
So I say to you take heed now
Of the Eagle in his flight
See how we are all connected,
Stand together in the Light.
COYOTEBLEU (Noel Cielo)
BEYOND THE FIRST DIMENSION
Plunged are we now to the first dimension
Crumbled deeper than understanding
with each tower -- no central place --
in mind wrenching anxiety -- so many
stripped of their will -- the outrage
more monumental than any symbol
Enforced suicide on a scale that hell
won’t understand has shattered bridges
between our awareness and consciousness
Unable to participate in your meaning-matrix
now, I fear the impact of our intentionality
The choice between crippling our souls
Or ’acting-out,’ all-knowing warfare
Either act will send a nation into insanity
and also the world
“Why did you come to-day?”
You, who lost the “kernel of
your will to live”
How could you covet so much
that you would elicit a response
so great as your own destruction?
Genuinely helpless and despairing we
solidly retreat -- all the while looking to
draw upon some motivation for change
And here I would hope our growth
has outstripped our “accumulation of
scraps of knowledge”
Please pray that these planes have
not pierced us, to the heart of our consciousness
Help us to give form to something we
don’t understand, before we act
Say just one word at the right moment
“Not simply dry data, external to us,
which we manipulate”
We must go beyond objects conforming themselves
to our own ways of understanding
Let us analyze each simple word
for its centuries of meaning
Intention comes from “tend,” to take care of...
The concept of intentionality contains both
our knowing and our forming reality
And these are inseparable from each other
You have destroyed our old world
and must be hated,
Time and space have changed forever
We stand on strange and bewildering ground
At the peak of consciousness of previous ages
Shall we embrace the future?
We mold ourselves and our world
simultaneously.
PIXORDIA (Suzanne Delaney)
UNTITLED
I slip into your bedroom
to listen to you breathe
softly,
quietly,
to not disturb your sleep
I offer up a silent plea
for a world gone mad somehow
I brush away my tears
I sigh
then I kiss your brow
I know that I am not alone
for half a world away
another mother kneels beside
her child’s bed to pray
DMWHIPP (Deborah)
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