Anniversary

[poliphilo]

It's too early.

9/11 was an incident in a story that hasn't ended yet. 

I have opinions, but today doesn't seem the right time to air them.

Here's the poem I wrote at the time

SEPTEMBER 11, 2001

Peace is the biggest and best. She’s blonde
And stripped to her wide, white hips. Athena
Strong-arms Mars from the scene. We don’t need him
Here where Peace is jetting the milk
At her hungry kiddie (that’s us). A panther
Rolls at her feet with its paws in the air.

That’s how Rubens imagined her
In some gap, I suppose, of the idiot war,
Generations long, that screwed with his Europe
Of Protestant and Catholic.
But in my dream she was wearing a dress
Of soft, plush velvet the colour of dust
That the rain has settled. Her hair was abundant
And red like fawnskin..

All night I sought her,
Searching through halls with classrooms off them,
Libraries with books stacked high,
And cafeterias where boys and girls
Drank coffee and conversed as friends.
She had called me sweetheart and held my head
To her chest. I was desperate. I couldn’t find her.

Comments

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

At the end of the story there will be a new world...

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

Such a beautiful poem, to be so desperately sad. Thank you for sharing it with us.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad you like it.

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

It is the last line that makes it poignant. Last lines are so important.

[beiderbecke.livejournal.com]

i'm in new york now, and the thing about the memorial is i feel as though most people have moved on, and the rest of the nation keeps beating a dead horse.

[intotheraw.livejournal.com]

I am in Iowa, so I am rather removed from it all, but how can we commemorate an anniversary when it is beaten into our faces every day?

9/11 was an incident in a story that hasn't ended yet.
If only our (US) government understood this...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Official commemorations are always hijacked by politicians wanting to put their spin on things.

[rosamicula.livejournal.com]

Superb.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

Of soft, plush velvet the colour of dust

[baritonejeff.livejournal.com]

evocative and lovely

Re: Of soft, plush velvet the colour of dust

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

[tispity.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much for sharing that. I was going to write something else here but it's all so hard to express, you've done a much beter job than I could.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

This is what I felt at the time- and I find it's what I still feel five years on.

We have had something very precious taken away from us.