Monday, September 11, 2006

that september

urban vermin heard the sound
when the towers hit the ground
five years now are dead and gone,
with rebuilding still undone

someone said we'll celebrate
this tragically unhappy date
we don't need a holiday
to remind us when to pray

while our enemies still are cheering
we recall the time is nearing
when their blind and deaf will grope
through a landscape without hope

and their historians will remember
they began to die in that september

september eleventh

intractable
rubble crushed in mounds
where buildings stood so tall
we couldn't see them all
far overhead
now dead

soon to be rebuilt on silt
mixed with human bones and guilt

death
mixed in with the crowd
proud to be the end
to which we all tend
but won't say aloud
even under our breath

Friday, September 08, 2006

limerix in the open air

poetry rising to glorious heights
like colorful verbal grammatical kites
soaring above the dull daily prose
alarming those
unable to savor astonishing flights

clouds of verbosity cover the sky
obscuring the vaults where the mighty birds fly
winged like the words
not pedestrian herds
who wander the plains all dusty and dry

too soon we return to the daily routine
forgetting the wonders we've dreamed and we've seen
in the dark stuck indoors
trapped by walls and by floors
and missing earth's cool hills of green

Saturday, September 02, 2006

Hine ma tov ...

Hypocritics loudly vent their feelings
in communiques they've sent:
Israel is always wrong
and Jews supposed to always lose.

That was then but now,
not to Allah will we bow,
nor to Europe will we turn,
when there's something we might learn.

No, instead to each
there is something we can teach:
When we stand together and we fight,
what we do will come out right.

endless showers

gently swaying treetops waving
raindrops spraying
blown in sheets across the ground

not quite silent water washing
windy splashing
almost makes a soothing sound

Friday, September 01, 2006

a sky of grey pearl

a sky of grey pearl
glaring my eyes to blindness
blinded by the light

incipient autumn

silently sliding across the sky
gathering clouds grumble and cry
soaking the sand with sneering disdain
cursing us all with gusts of cold rain
wait for the wind to blow it away
clearing another cool soggy day