Can you touch it?
Can you hear it?
Can you taste it?
Can you see it?
Can you smell it?
Let me ask again.
Can you touch the broken shadows?
Can you hear the painful bellows?
Can you taste the bitter truth?
Can you see the dreadful youth?
Can you smell the putrid words?
Can you feel the movement of one’s action?
Can you perceive the sensation of your nerves?
Now let me ask again.
What can you do—
In a world that went through and through?
What can you give—
To a person who is desperate to live?
What can you...

I wished for sympathy from the crowd in some sense
A soliloquy would reveal my morbid intent
Then tear burned lenses would hold a reflection
Curving their contempt towards my affection

I sought after sympathy from the crowd in some way
That a minor character might die in my play
A supporting actress would cry her last chorus
And I readied to draw tears for the both of us

I coveted sympathy from the crowd in some fashion
But she dropped to the floor before assumed "action!"
Curtains now drawing, how should I act?
The audience sees clearly, dry eyes still intact

I demand sympathy from the crowd at last
Disbelief's broadcast came grouped in a gasp
"This is not the tragedy, her character did not die!
Only the mask that wears her, please stand by"

To think a man weak
Weakens ye
To think a man sick
Sickens ye
To think a man less
lessens ye
the more becomes
what ye think it be

care  when you feel good
or your care will hurt more

Survivors
by Michael R. Burch

(for the victims and survivors of 9/11 and their families)

In truth, we do not feel the horror
of the survivors,
but what passes for horror:

a shiver of “empathy.”

We too are “survivors,”
if to survive is to snap back
from the sight of death

like a turtle retracting its neck.

Published by The HyperTexts, Gostinaya (Russia), Ulita (Russia), Promosaik(Germany), The Night Genre Project and Muddy Chevy; also turned into a YouTube video by Lillian Y. Wong. Keywords: survivors, victims, families, 911, 9/11, terrorist, attack, terrorism, empathy, sympathy, truth, horror, death, survive, survival

You have no sympathy
as rumours flee
Spotlight's on
and facts act accordingly

Simplicity shows less shadow

Is it more just to be
As the price for the free
holds levels of uncertainty
Value your integrity
It is more to be just

Hey there, I'm Joe Sixpack,
an American full of pride.
I don't want no welfare state,
I don't want no free ride.

And I don't want no charity
'cause freedom don't come free.
I just got four priorities,
they're ME, ME, ME and ME!

I just can't stand the government.
Tax, I don't wanna pay.
Don't want no lazy welfare bums
to **** it all away.

Don't want no ******* FEMA
after flood or hurricane.
Don't want no public healthcare
to fix someone else's pain.

But if my house blows over
or if I get unemployed,
and I don't got insurance
and my health's getting destroyed...

Well, then you'll see me change my tune
and I'll be first in line.
Sayin' "I deserve a handout",
"Oh poor ME" I'll ***** and whine.