He was a toad catching flies
Except that with each lashing of his tongue
He pulled down aircraft
And long could be heard their cries:
Blessed be, Amphibian Creator!
Death to America!
Frog is greater!

We muslims
Are people too
We muslims have the same anatomy
The same emotions
The same desires
The same needs
And the potential for heartbreak
It hurts me to
Think
You thinks of us as all the same
Terrorists
Jihadis
And literate ******* and *******
When really we are the same as you










نحن المسلمين
هم الناس أيضا
نحن المسلمين لدينا نفس التشريح
نفس المشاعر
نفس الرغبات
نفس الاحتياجات
وإمكانية حدوث حسرة
يؤلمني
يفكر
أنت تعتقد أننا جميعا نفس الشيء
إرهابيون
جهاديون
والكلاب والأوغاد المتعلمين
عندما نكون حقاً مثلك

To the victims of the 9/11 attacks
I apologize as a Muslim and a human being
For what those ******* did to you
If I had the choice I would die protecting
You
As for the *******
Who ******* up everything
Might I suggest
An apology to vics, muslims
And to Allah and Mohammed
(Pbuh)
For acts of sheer insanity
And murderous rage






‎لضحايا هجمات الحادي عشر من سبتمبر
‎ أعتذر كمسلم وإنسان
‎ على ما فعله هؤلاء المتسكعون لك
‎ إذا كان لدي الخيار فسوف أموت وأنا أحمي
‎ أنت
‎ أما المتسكعون
‎ من أفسد كل شيء
‎ قد أقترح
‎ اعتذار لفيكس المسلمين
‎ وإلى الله ومحمد
‎ (صلى الله عليه وآله وسلم)
‎ لأفعال الجنون المطلق
‎ والغضب القاتل

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

911 Carousel
by Michael R. Burch

“And what rough beast ... slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”—W. B. Yeats

They laugh and do not comprehend, nor ask
which way the wind is blowing, no, nor why
the reeling azure fixture of the sky
grows pale with ash, and whispers “Holocaust.”

They think to seize the ring, life’s tinfoil prize,
and, breathless with endeavor, shriek aloud.
The voice of terror thunders from a cloud
that darkens over children adult-wise,

far less inclined to error, when a step
in any wrong direction is to fall
a JDAM short of heaven. Decoys call,
their voices plangent, honking to be shot ...

Here, childish dreams and nightmares whirl, collide,
as East and West, on slouching beasts, they ride.

Published by The Neovictorian/Cochlea, Mindful of Poetry, Gostinaya and Scholasticus/Fullosia Press. Keywords/Tags: 911, war, violence, retribution, twin towers, terror, terrorism, east, west, dreams, nightmares, error

Because Her Heart Is Tender
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth, on the first anniversary of 9-11

She scrawled soft words in soap: “Never Forget”
dove-white on her car’s window (though the wren,
because its heart is tender, might regret
it called the sun to wake her). As I slept,
she heard lost names recounted, one by one.

She wrote in sidewalk chalk: “Never Forget”
and kept her heart’s own counsel. No rain swept
away those words, no tear leaves them undone.

Because her heart is tender with regret,
bruised by razed towers’ glass and steel and stone
that shatter on and on and on and on ...
she stitches in damp linen: “NEVER FORGET”
and listens to her heart’s emphatic song.
(The wren might tilt its head and sing along
because its heart once understood regret
when nestlings fell beyond, beyond, beyond ...
love's reach, and still the boot-heeled world strode on.)

She writes in adamant: “NEVER FORGET!”
because her heart is tender with regret.

Published by Neovictorian/Cochlea, The Villanelle, The Eclectic Muse, Nietzsche Twilight, Nutty Stories (South Africa), Poetry Renewal Magazine, and Other Voices International. Keywords/Tags: villanelle, 911, terror, terrorism, never, forget, heart, tender, regret, heroism, patriotism, courage, sacrifice

Flight 93
by Michael R. Burch

I held the switch in trembling fingers ... asked
why existence felt so small, so meaningless,
like a minnow squirming feebly in my grasp ...

... vibrations of huge engines thrummed my arms
as, glistening with sweat, I nudged the switch
to OFF ... I heard the klaxon’s shrill alarms

like vultures’ shriekings ... earthward, in a stall ...
we floated ... earthward ... wings outstretched, aghast
like Icarus ... as through the void we fell ...

till nothing was so beautiful, so blue ...
so vivid as that moment ... and I held
an image of your face, and dreamed I flew

into your arms ... the earth rushed up ... I knew
such comfort, in that moment, loving you.

NOTE: This poem imagines the struggle in the cockpit for control of the Flight 93 airplane. The terrorists apparently intended to crash the plane into the White House. The heroic passengers kept that from happening, at the cost of their lives. Keywords/Tags: 9-11, sonnet, Flight 93, terrorists, terrorism, heroes, heroism, courage, bravery, loyalty, patriotism, sacrifice, love

Flying
Crying
Multiplying
Terrifying
Shrapnel flying, burned children crying
Deaths multiplying, the world's terrifying

If you give a troll a cookie
He will never stop with just one
Like cancer he'll spread
And infect his poison, just for fun
He used to live under a bridge
Now he resides in our very own community
Stopped he must be, my friends
Lest he terrorize HP with impunity