9-11 POEM:

Dreadlocks of a Scream
____

Fever too high
Doze
hallucinate
doze...

...into the blue sky
and watch the tracer upward
tip
hesitate
and turn toward earth
Split apart
in the widening dreadlocks of a scream
One that took the whole world down with it

A woman is standing on an edge
hundreds of feet up in the open air--
Just standing....

“You-- who have mounted to the sky
will be cast down
with great violence
You, the golden cup”
set down

I am burning up at 103
Toss in the arid sheets
Chafed flushed cheeks
against this living desert pillow

Desert
Hallucinate
Can't get a GPS on where I am
or what's the time
But most of all – what just happened?

I toss and wake to slivered light
coming from another room
Hear the whispers
See their vacant faces
Must have walked into the den
Feel their shivers hush
My questions
Between the aisles of candlelight
and murmured prayers
I'm walking
Still in my right mind

“It's on the screen”
for all to see
without electricity

I have a fever of 103
--and the main question???

Why everyone's transfixed

Everyone
______

1-28-86-- Space Shuttle Challenger explodes, killing crew.

9-11-01-- World Trade Center
_______

“...Now so that your heart does not grow faint,
And you are not afraid at the report that will be heard in the land—
For the report will come one year,
And after that another report in another year,
And violence will be in the land
With ruler against ruler”— Jer 50:46

Where Did the Towers Go-- by Doctor Judy Wood

Finally, after her futile trembling
Over grumbling,
She walks the waltz of wobbling candles' flame,
Or light shimmering, bending through red wine.
She's free to escape the shadows of shame
Or invisibly growing veins of time,
Flowing through every wave, pirouette
Or dying fall of muscular movements.
A romance of ghosts with widows' spirits
Finally finding one another in a moment,
After years of searching the afterlife.
The dance, the violins' conversation
Lets this story unfold through her, the wife
To melodies, to memory's ocean.
Her body finally fitting the song,
Shaped surreally and softly to her soul.

Scuffing to where you lay in the sand
on your back on a blanket
eyes closed in sleep far behind
Not looking for me

I look out to the sky fading white
agitation of breeze
I sense it
Change coming

Settle beside you
watching the afternoon
as it leaves the shore lost
in my thoughts

I don't notice but feel
the warmth of you
curl in against me
my legs now
exposed, soft
with your arm thrown behind
to reach around hips
as if to ask
for something you cannot....

Tossing a glance with my hair's
nonchalance
Checking our camouflage
among beach-goers

We could be anyone
just anyone—right?

Turn from the world
from its judgement
Lean in close
Stroking silver of hair
with comb of my fingers
Feel your arm brush my chest
Noting the scent of you--
like caramel to melt
in the closing of distance
my mouth to your temple tastes

Unendurable
moment
surrendered to kiss

A storm swept through
with wind enough to tear the trees out
by their roots
whip the rain in sideways
streaks of darkness –
enough...

enough

Enough!

Sirens and the engines roar
to underscore by thunder
some emergency

The wailing
dives and sinks and sets by decibels
in the miles of impossible...

In those jewels
of distance from you
have I been set?
In gold
of eventide?
A masterpiece of sorrow

Am I
to live another day without you?

My sister – camping on the coast
Muttering over macaroni
Fixing salad
Talking to a seagull

“George” mews like a cat
awaiting dinner
Waddling web-foot along the stony cliff
To him – life is a handout
against the backdrop of the setting sun
Garlic bread, spaghetti, chocolate chip cookie –

My sister adopts things
What was ever wild after?
Even this “Master of the Wind”
eats Italian tonight!

Till the “Alpha Bird”
younger stronger
spots the eye of orange on plate of white –
Whirls in on protest and demand
George responds in kind
Intruder seizes a meatball
George squawks and lunges
his last...
_

The sunset on the Maine coast tonight
enthroned in vaporous haze
Imbued with fragrance-- ocean rose
The sky-- delicate
mountain laurel pink
bleeding into purple
where the tallest spires of spruce
have stabbed upward
From the coastline's rock
comes qweedling of the robins
calls of sea birds in the peaceful distance....
__

        ….George struggles in Alpha's grip
on windpipe
Meal forgotten
as nature serves its worst
His neck arched back
Wings fluttering desperate
in his last display
a spray of feathers
Strength will take this day
Plunge it into faint squawks
George dissolves limp in quivers

as Alpha--
weightless victor
lifts away

Suzy cries out
despair at loss of little friend
        “I can't! I can't!

I rush out to hold  
his last limp sigh

...tossing his gray and white into another sky