A digital chapbook
by Richard B. Simon
Greetings,
This is a small collection of poems that I wrote in the minutes, hours, days, weeks, and months immediately following the September 11 attacks, presented in chronological order.
The first seven poems were written on September 11, 2001. All morning, I watched the news coverage and wrote poetry as I watched -- not even really processing. Just, as I tell my students these days, puking it out onto the page.
I had the immediate sense -- as, I think, many of us did -- that I had to bear some sort of witness, that it was a duty to record what was obviously the beginning of an extended period of heavy turbulence.
What follows is much of what I wrote between the collapse of the Twin Towers and New Year's Eve, when I was returning to California after having finally been back to New York and seen Ground Zero for the first time.
Rich
San Francisco, California
September 11, 2006
All Flights Across the Nation Have Been Grounded
(San Francisco, 9/11/2001, 8:30 am Pacific) I cannot believe my ears this morning
I cannot believe my eyes this morning
Utter collapse
Christened by fire
Bathed in smoke and steel
cement and glass
New York engulfed in smoke
New York engulfed in smoke
DC engulfed in smoke
Car bomb at the state
Plane down in Pittsburgh
California on alert
California on alert
No one is in the sky
No one is in the sky
Bush is in the sky
wishing his suit fit
We are on the ground
We are glued to our sets
While New York's finest bathe in fire
and smoke and glass
and steel
The Pentagon is up in smoke
the President is in the sky
Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Laden
Arafat
Arafat
What is going on?
No one knows
Where are our friends
Where are our cousins
Our grandmas
The guards are on the roof
Ghosts of Oklahoma shroud the scene
Ghosts of Palm Beach County choke the news
Fifty thousand ghosts in smoke and ash
Are in the sky
Planes are on the ground
Fear is on the sky
fear is in the ground
The chickens are come home to roost
No ones in the sky
except the birds
Symbols Those two towers
Have always been
Ever since I've been
Towering over the world
Symbols of freedom
and finance
Unshaken in 1993
Symbols of the glories of Democracy
and capitalism
To somebody out there
symbols of Arrogance
of Western dominion over the world
The empire building forces of the dollar
This morning they were symbols
of someone's victory
smoldering torches of a primal memory
Somewhere
Someone is hooting and hollering in brutal celebration
Saying now you know
how it feels
to cry over an inconceivable pound of flesh
O senseless death
O mushroom cloud
Turned on its head
PEARL HARBOR DON’T HOLD A CANDLE TO THIS We are at war
Not with the Germans
It’s not the Russians
Not even the Japanese
We are witnessing the smoldering harbingers
Of a new world order
And what that new world order is
No one knows
We only pray
Even those of us without a temple
That it’s not an order
Of twisted smoke
And steel and glass
Some one on the news said
The military
And the intelligence community
Decided long ago
That civil rights must be respected
Above all else
In matters of national security
He said that that may
All soon change
If there is a god
God help us all
The Nation is Shut DownThe schools are closed and closing
Planes are in the sky unknown
Firemen are missing
Many many many folks are dead
The Twin Towers are no more
The Pentagon is burning
Presidents have been moved underground
Four big planes have crashed
Lady Liberty and Uncle Sam
Are holding hands
On the edge of their seats
wondering
What happens next?
Giuliani’s cloaked in dust
President is who knows where?
Presidents are underground
Arafat is on TV
Trembling in his boots
An elderly Palestinian woman
In the streets in the West Bank
Ululates with glee
Children jump and shout and laugh
Flash two fingers
Not for peace
The ambassador from the Taliban
To Pakistan
says he feels our pain
He hopes the courts find justice
11:20 am The rubble is settling
The smoke is shifting
The fingers are starting to point
But at whom?
Reprisals Retribution Revenge
Congressmen say the national priority
Is not education
Is not health
It’s national security, by God!
Reprisal, Retribution, Revenge
Bush comes on
on tape
his lips move
his mouth says nothing
his signal breaks up
Once the technical difficulties go away
He calls the perpetrator a faceless coward
He promises as much
Retribution, Reprisal, Revenge
In the West Bank, they’re
handing out candy
This is what Bush wants
I’m told they’ve said
Coby wishes Clinton was still boss
He would have been on right away
Telling us that it’s okay
Bush offered nothing but
Reprisals Retribution Revenge
The full resources of the Federal government
(or as well as can expect from someone
in a straightjacket)
Will come to aid the victims
of the faceless
faithless
coward
And look at me
Sitting on the couch
with my coffee and my Prozac pen
Look at me
I’m pointing fingers too
Better there than up my ass
Not knowing what to do
Is this World War III?Americans are giving blood
The president is in the heartland
The only leader today
Is Rudy Giuliani
More and more congressmen
Even Feinstein calling for war
Palestinian diplomat suggests it was the Jews
All the old hawks come out of the closet
You can hear them
See them licking their chops
Questions keep ringing in my head
Like why did the plane that hit
The pentagon
Hit the least important side?
The side under construction for months?
Why did oil prices surge?
Why can’t I help but think
The boys in the big white room
started this war
And why did those planes
stay for so long in the sky
after deviating course
witnessed by the tower boys
Everybody’s crying out for war
Makers of war are suddenly employed
Let the grim machines of war roll on!
Roll until swift justice has been wrought
Against the evil monster
Who
has
no
Face
It’s here, It’s official, It’s World War III The country should be prepared for a sustained military operation
The President pronounced it
the first
world war
of
the
twenty-
first
century
The machines of war gear up to roll
And we will feed them with our blood
We are terrified indeed
But we will go
For fear and chaos may have grown its roots
In the bottomless depths of oil wells
And billion dollar bank accounts
But now good faces evil in the mud
(Let’s hope we don’t use
The same tactics
As the drug war
Or vietnam
Or korea
Or the war in the gulf
Which we didn’t win either)
The battle lines are being drawn
A jigsaw puzzle round the middle east
A game of dominoes around the world
A chain reaction sure to send out sparks
In all directions
Into the pools of gasoline
That lie beneath the surface
Of afghanistan and pakistan
Pakistan and india
India and china
China and russia
And so it goes
And so it goes
And so it goes
Perhaps the third time
Will be the charm
We Of The World’s Only Superpower Are All On Edge
(San Francisco, September 13, 2001 3:05 pm)
We are all on edge
because
Someone finally figured out
that all it takes to bring us to our knees in mortal fear
is a plastic knife
all it takes to empty out our airports and our schools
are empty threats
phoned in
all it takes to send our fearless leaders in the House
wheeling from their desks onto the lawn
is an empty box lying
alone
in the marble corner
of a marble wall
and a cold stone floor
The Problem With The Myth These Days Oh, Luke Skywalker
Beloved farmboy
rags to riches
in the fields one day
and in the sky the next
soaring through space on the hero’s journey
to strike a death knell blow
against the evil Empire
We love you, Luke
We stand for all you are
The Underdog
The Ragtag Band
How we share your work ethic
and your sense of Duty
We cheer you as you fight the Dark Lord
And struggle against all you know is true
to fly your ship
into the core
of the Death Star
and strike a mighty death knell blow
for all you know is good and just
And every time the Death Star blows
to bits
and falls
a million billion
trillion shards
of steel and glass
and fire and smoke betrayed
into the ruthless vaccuum of space
we always
Always
Cheer
For you embody all We are
and all that We are taught to be
all We are taught to believe
from birth
So
You can imagine
My son
How difficult it is
For us
For We
to see ourselves
Behind
the iron mask
that holds
you down
and makes
you yearn
challenge
your humble tether
and stretch
out with your mighty Force
to strike
the death’s knell blow
at We
IT IS ALSO IN THE NATIONAL DEFENSE It is also an act
In the national defense
To reconsider a foreign policy
That anyone
Anywhere
For any reason
Sees as being unjust
Or unfair
for in the odd event
that that is true
then said foreign policy
in being unjust
or unfair
is also
at its very core
un-American
We hold this truth
To be self-evident
The Fall richard b simon The inferno raged around me. Fire seemed to drip from the ceiling – no, it did drip, it poured from the ceiling, molten acoustic tile in flux and flow. Papers blew around in swirls of high-up wind. We felt, for the first time, the mountain’s height at which we’d all been living and working. The door was blocked – a mound of desks and twisted steel and who knows what? A rounded hullshape hulking up through the floor, through the ceiling. We had no way, just backs sweating profusely and blistering faces and hands. Our fingernails were soft.
I had to make the decision. Fight or flight we used to say in psych, and there was no fight to fight. No might and nothing right. Only fright. Barely even a sight through smoke to see. I took her hand in mine and I and she, we crossed on doughy knees, skittered skattered across a floor that rolled like waves, like earthquake desert mirages of oceans, high on smoke and fumes and fuel and fright, we grasped betwixt the twisting bars of steel still cold to touch of burning hands, looked out at birds circling on winged breeze and envied them their talent, their talons, their hollow bones – we kissed a kiss of lifelovedeath and then took flight ...
Soaring through the great divide between the el and even
I wondered in the years that reeled like motion pictures through my mind
why this why now why she why me
lungs could hardly bear the strength to pulse their only task
and robbed of bloodborne air
my mind
went black
The moving pictures took me back
like dreams that move across a thousand stories at a time
nothing holding the narrative line or so we think
consciousness tied in a bag of rocks and thrown to fall into a stream
down into abyssal zones the cores of my beliefs stripped down
like pinstripes flannel freefall tatters
and forced to look upon a tale behold it as it were not mine
A tale of a young boy
born unto too-young parents
who fought each other and the world
who struggled to survive it seemed
against the odds of losses ceilings built by greedy bosses
an average life
a middling life
not an exceptional movie
or even much drama
but hard and cold enough to make a little boy with eyes of steel
lust for gold
A boy who rode the carousel
spied the golden ring
and instead of jumping up upon his seat
or reaching, stretching out to catch its shine in one fell swoop
determined, narrowed eyes and rode on
and rode and rode and rode
leaning
ever
steadily
inward
Through school and college
working working
go to class then straight to work
work and work and then do homework
wake up tired and go to class
then go to work
and work and work
and work and work and then
perhaps a kiss
and wake up tired and go to class and work and work some more
To strive to have what other kids got easy
gifts from parents vowing the American Vow
for each successive generation ever more successful
to rain down show’rs of gold upon their children
to give them more than they themselves’d been given
And by this dream and his own parents failures
to fulfill the vow, the boy was driven
Driven through the tests and quizzes
driven ‘cross the barren plains of papers
final essays hand delivered
to awaiting teachers smiling brightly
at the pupil burning brightest
who seemed to really care while other students
pissed away their opportunity to learn on beer and psychedelic mushrooms
copping dirty feels instead passed out on dirty frathouse taproom floors
The boy became a man and drove and drove
himself into the workforce with degrees after his name
like b of a and m.b.a.
tassels hanging from a clapboard hat
tassels hanging from the rearview of a shiny german auto
traffic hanging time across bridges highways tunnels
into cities stealing time away from home where
wife (she’d done her time on frathouse floors) and
children (spoiled with no sense of work’s reward) waited
waited waited for their wand’ring knight’s return
Then return he would, to bills and gripes and swipes and sorrows
life so miserable he’d swear tomorrow
he’d work even later
He started staying hours and hours after closing
eating numbers drinking strategies of marketing
and coffee high atop the dark’ning towers
working working coming home after the house had gone to sleep
and family content in their unconscious state
his manhood’s castle silent in the midnight hours allowing him rest
if only for a moment ...
then back to work to work some more to make the money
to pay the bills to please the wife to feed the kids and clothe them all
and work til nine get home at ten and fix a drink while staring out
through the plate glass into the yard the darkness there the only part
of days filled up with work and work and work and work
where darkness has a chance to breathe ...
and one night late later than most a big account about to break
and spill its gold over the company stock
She walked into his office with the files he’d asked someone else for
in red
she pulled the pin out of her hair
long golden hair
which spilled its gold
over the company stock
which rose
dramatically
they’d both been working so damn hard
for families who dared complain
how mommy was always at work
how daddy always came home late
until they each had had enough
the anger and the pain
swelled up in martyred blood that boiled
and pushed against their clothing for release
grey flannel pinstripe tatters
bright red business skirtsuit flutters
spilled over the company stock
and work and work and work and work
and work and spill over the company desk the company files
like this it rolled for months and months
shreds of wife and children love and family fell away
until they were but quiet breathing sounds in darkened house
time with them but in-between the time at work the time with her
workloveworklife homelovehomelife one supplants the other
life turned on its head but had the ring got any closer?
or had the lean become the ring
the quest the thing
for which I’d quested?
it seems so clear
from here
out here
at nine point eight meters per second squared and counting
I feel her hand in mine as cold and stiff as stone and know
her eyes are closed she’s all I have but no
in my last moment
sucking final breath of blue
instead of smoke and fire
I let go
and soar
alone
to wait
purgated
for my wife
to live her years
remarry
die
and join me
redemption
cement
Guerilla, 2001Richard B. Simon, October 28, 2001
Trained in mean, dirty streets
where the only hope for a man
is to fight
or die
the soldier looks at death
with old eyes
not new eyes
The world has not changed for him
Brandishing a knife
a needle
a sword
a pistol
a rifle
a pickup
a bomb
whatever it takes
he’ll go to his god
fighting
as he has fought since birth
to survive
to make it to a ripe old age
when his life expectancy
is right around where he is now
For one like he
there is no work but this
His brother is in a prison
breaking his back
for pennies a day
his father died in a war
without reason
sisters and mother
the silent unclean
labor slavishly
to hold together
broken households
whose men are dead
or gone
or worse
Friends he used
to laugh with in school
are dead or else
belong to rival factions now
and shoot at him on sight
And so
without despair
regret
or fear
he’ll say his prayer
to his personal god
tie the sacred cloth around his head
and wander down the mean and dirty streets
to take up arms
and fight once more
among the few
the proud
the Marines
Around Ground Zero (written december 31, 2001, 30,000 feet over America) It is naught but a big hole
in The City
Nearly four months later,
its vertical component
is space
palpable emptiness
a day and a night
before the sloping viewing stand
the wreckage hardly apparent
above the perimeter fence,
the screen
of chain link
and green cloth
hides the bottoms of cranes
the piles of ash
pulverized cement
I-beams gnarled
fingerbones
and teeth
from probing
tourists’
eyes
on every block
around the rim
tables covered with t-shirts
hats
posters and pins
FDNY
NYPD
FDNYPD
The NY a Yankees sign
I love NY
the love a heart in red
Americana
Newyorkana
These tables are the sprouts,
fresh growth sprung
nourished by the titans’ decay
icons of capital collapsed
like great stones dropped
into a pond
sending ripples emanating
out in concentric directions
engulfing every curve of earth
reflecting off the very edges
bearing the teeming masses back
o’er the tempest
tossed
into the center
stirred
to silence
moved
to bear witness
the wretched refuse
of the golden door
gifts, flags, posters
banners, magic markered wishes
from Kansan middle schools
to families
of lost brothers sisters sons
with Russian names
a face that smiles
from blocklong garlands
wreaths and flowers
Every inroad carries us
into the center
from roped-off City Hall
the jam-packed churchstep shrine
the sidewalk brimmed with life
to a few blocks down where
a hundred begin
cautiously
to subvert
the barricades
a closer look
treading lightly around
obstacles
climbing where they can to see
The Pile
But now the giant heap is mostly gone,
carted off to fill another hole
an air of heaviness
is what is left
the weight of souls
Around the hole the faces
of the buildings scarred
by what they’ve seen
rooms ripped open
to the sun
beams exposed
like pictures of Beirut
And here and there a plywood window
across the street
or in the lee
leaves us wonder
how the path
of the debris
could possibly?
A river trickles out
carving braided channels
in the load of ash it bears
into the gutter
A bar long closed
its window counter thick with dust
a crystal palace cracked
a metal outlet box, trailing
its length of silver conduit,
hanging
in the branches
of a tree
an Army man
in camouflage
his accent more South Bronx than South
directs the trucks arriving
from the West
through camps of tents
into the site
And for blocks and blocks uptown,
like a sundial lost its style,
windows, alleyways and roofs
that haven’t seen the sun
at certain times of day
for thirty years
lay open to the naked sky
.
