Explore Poems: September 11th

Another Grand Jury
does not hand
an indictment down (“I Can’t Breathe”), and for a
moment it seems as if I could be dreaming,
the helicopters there in the dream,
the sharp, loud
sounds of the chopping
of the air, the cutting it in thousands of pieces,
fissioning...

Putting the pox
in apocalypse
the pudding in the skull
has a lemony taste
just a little
until you push through
to the richer
almost bitter
sweetness at the center

Yum is a corporate brand
encompassing multiple
fast-food franchise chains
he marched his co-workers
out of the restaurant
& into the woods
where he shot...

They’re gathering now
cone-head ghouls Spider-Man   
fly-by-nighters’ burnt-cork cheeks   
flailed sheets and twiggy voices   
Mama stalking a border dog’s   
crescent around back around   
as if to fend off certain harm   
October’s second sodium moon   
basting the street and barbecue ribs   
and links she smoked all day   
to keep her four...

After most of the bodies were hauled away
and while the FBI and the Fire Department and NYPD
were still haggling about who was in charge, as smoke cleared,
the figures in Tyvek suits came, gloved, gowned, masked,
ghostly figures searching rubble for pieces...

We gave our dogs a button to sniff,   
or a tissue, and they bounded off   
confident in their training,   
in the power of their senses   
to recreate the body,   

but after eighteen hours in rubble   
where even steel was pulverized   
they curled on themselves   
and stared up...

I / omen

What was going on in the New York American
Black/red/green helmeted neon night?
The elevator door was closing behind us, we were the ones

Plunging floor after floor after floor after floor   
To the abyss—but it was someone else’s face
Staring from the...

When I left Eli Zabar the cut-out star on the window
was whirling in the animation of the rich and hungry
hunched over tables for a $30 sandwich and a Diet Coke.
 
It was raining and the blurred glass of the galleries
was the...

1.
 
A canvas with less turpentine, more hard edges, less bleeding,
that was good for beauty, Frankenthaler in Art News
 
in the dining car crammed with parkas and laptops
micro-waved cellophane, plastic plates and canvas bags, 
 
and the valley under fog as the cows...

They jumped from the burning floors—
one, two, a few more,
higher, lower.

The photograph halted them in life,
and now keeps them   
above the earth toward the earth.

Each is still complete,
with a particular face
and blood well hidden.

There’s enough time
for hair to come loose,
for keys...

Into the smouldering ruin now go down:
And walk where once she walked and breathe the air
She breathed that final day on the burning stair
And follow her, beyond the fleeing crowds,
Into the fire, and through the climbing clouds.

Into the smouldering ruin...

My brother was on his way
to a dental appointment
when the second plane hit
four stories below the office
where he worked. He’s never
said anything about the guy
who took football bets, how
he liked to watch his...

Metropolitan Forecast


          D8 l the new york times tuesday, september 11, 2001
          Metropolitan Forecast
          today Less humid, sunshine
          High 79. Noticeably less humid air will filter into the metropolitan region on. Brisk winds from the...

Desolate and lone
All night long on the lake
Where fog trails and mist creeps,
The whistle of a boat
Calls and cries unendingly,
Like some lost child
In tears and trouble
Hunting the harbor's breast
And the harbor's eyes....

Yes, thou art gone and never more
Thy sunny smile shall gladden me;
But I may pass the old church door
And pace the floor that covers thee;

May stand upon the cold, damp stone,
And think that frozen lies below
The lightest heart that I...