The sky was golden yellow
Air was black, unbearable hot
While we were running
towards help.
Running non stop.

Passing many trapped animals
Nothing we could do to help.
Felt like our life was over.
Felt very much like hell .

Fire flames as  high as trees
surrounding.
The thick smoke inhale was real.
Tears were running without knowing , fear and
desperation was the feel.

Honor to all the firefighters,
who risk  their lives
courageously .
To save house and hearth
And all the other living herd.

Shell✨🐚

Mending
by Michael R. Burch

I am besieged with kindnesses;
sometimes I laugh,
delighted for a moment,
then resume
the more seemly occupation of my craft.

I do not taste the candies;
the perfume
of roses is uplifted
in a draft
that vanishes into the ceiling’s fans

that spin like old propellers
till the room
is full of ghostly bits of yarn ...
My task
is not to knit,

but not to end too soon.

This is a poem for the survivors of 9–11 whose families lost loved ones in the terrorist attacks. Keywords: 911, survivors, victims, first, responders, passengers, firemen, police, heroes, terrorist, attacks, World Trade Center, Flight 93, Pentagon, White House

The red sun shines high
The grey clouds hide the blue sky
As the heatwave rides the winds
And the common man sweats with the heat

The fighters run in a rush
homeless or home savers
asking for a divine favor
sweating with fear and a day of labor

The culprits sneak in the woods
with the firestarters under their hoods
dreaming of the money they took
sweating with the guilt of a crook

different sweats, with different flavors
they reflect the lives of different morals
and even belonging to dead men memorials

Fading asleep
Three blurry forks in the road
three of everything
Until i blink.
I crawled up out my passenger side door like a submarine hatch
lifted the heavy weight with my back
Didn't think to roll down the window

I called the band to laugh at the irony
we just wrote a song on falling asleep
crashing our car, dreaming in autumn.
In the song, I dreamed of a girl I'll never have.
But when it happened
I was dreaming of the leftover sheppards pie at home.

Swerved into a rock wall,
Kick flipped my mercury on it's side.
I wore my seat belt
woke up drivers door to the ground.

An old man stopped to warm me.
my grandmothers ghost
in his passenger seat.
offered I sit in their car
out of the cold
Until the firemen arrived.

I saw my mother's blue SUV coming
And waved for the elderly couple to part.
tears in my mothers eyes,
she hugged me tight.
The police showed
To Check out the scene.
as I was alive,
They mostly watched me.
laughing hysterically
At how prophetic poetry can be
and how lucky I have been
And how my shoulder angels are my grandmother, and a gambler named risk.

When My partner arrived she expected me crumpled bleeding.
Smiling false safety through the phone
as I bled out
But I was fine.
she stormed towards me.
her friends stepping outside the car.
her girlfriend in the passenger seat
in the fetal position.
Throwing a tantrum, because she wouldn't get to sleep with my security blanket tonight.

she held me greiving.
I felt like this was an alternate universe.
where I survived
and this wasn't the real story.

The tow truck arrived as the cops collected my Lisence,
the medical professional
okay'd me to sleep tonight.

The firemen flipped my car onto the rockwall from being sideways.
The tow truck grinded my car across the wall into metally pulp.
They collected the bits and dropped it off on my driveway a mile down the road.
my partner drove her friends home
to return to my bed later.
check i was breathing throughout the night.

My car, crumpled. Missing an eye. Looked like a corpse.
like a reminder of what should have happened.
you could feel all sorts of spirits
when I opened the trunk.
contents compacted against the left side.
when i woke up, all i saw was laughter.
At the irony.
the shock.
how many more times
I would need to die
before I perform a magic trick.
if i turned my car into powder
turned my story to a falacy.
how long before their panic attacks become a suicide?
And I'll stop seeing three of everything.

You go I go
A firemans pledge
Grasping a buddies hand
Hanging over the ledge
Below them
An immense raging fire
There is no doubt
The situation is dire
Their bravery matched
By no other
Giving there life
For their brother
Every call
Fraught with danger
Battling fires
For a stranger
No matter the need
They stand ready to act
Heroes amongst us
That's a fact