9/11: A poem and tribute

I wrote this poem on 9/11 in 2002.  Be forwarned, I am unashamedly liberal and this poem reflects that.

September 11^th, 2002

 

A year has passed

In the aftermath

Of our country’s greatest unlearned lesson

 

We name the dead

And fill our heads

With the insidious propaganda of retribution

 

We are told that this is war

Assured

We don’t know what’s in store

 

It’s an eye for an eye

A tooth for a tooth

While orphaned children cry

And we ignore the truth

 

Years of Americans on Unamerican shores

Tallying it all in incursions and tours

Passion plays of collateral damage

And we have collectively managed

To forget

The regret

We should feel keenly especially now

When we have gained the understanding of how

The majority of the world lives

And dies

Yet the cries

Of children of third world nations

Of lesser stations

Fall on our deaf ears

How many years

How many souls

Can we kill or control

Before we grasp the error of our ways

How many days

Of playing god in countries

Who have never known plenty

Before we learn

The hatred we’ve earned

How many schools and hospitals burned

How many lives wasted

How much blood tasted

Before we understand

The impact of our heavy hand

 

It is this that perpetuates

Deep seated hate

Causes men to take to the skies

 

And our snide

American pride

Allows us to believe that jealousy

Is the cause of this tragedy

When the truth lies

In that which we deny

Our culpability

Our responsibility

In a thousand tragedies

In poor countries

Who could not refuse

To be used

To be “aided”

And we wonder why they are jaded?

 

How lucky are we that terror lives in one day

Not an ever present threat that is constantly replayed

When all are affected but most indirectly

Instead of fearing for your loved ones daily

 

When your home is destroyed in a bomb strike

Whose purpose is to avoid a gas hike

In the land of big screen tvs

And shiny SUVs

Then you can claim righteous rage

 

When your children waste away before your eyes

To support the lies

Of the thinly veiled fascism

Of overt capitalism

You will have borne the weight of the golden age

 

Each person lost

Is too high a cost

Whether you believe them black or white

Wrong or right

By whoever’s standards you choose

We all lose

When we close our eyes and turn our backs

On pointless and futile attacks

 

What it all boils down to

Is doing all we can do

So the few

Don’t drag the earth’s entire population

Down to prove their’s is the greatest nation

Because it will not matter

If everything is shattered

To satiate the thoughtless, heartless bloodlust

Of small men

 

We must make sure it doesn’t end this way

That we all accept our responsibility to say

This is our pain and our loss

And it has come a too great a cost

We will not see this wrong redone

On other mothers daughters sisters brothers fathers and sons

This has to end here

Let us be clear

We will not defile the dead

We will not turn our heads

We will demand an end to the cycle of violence

We will proclaim our defiance

We will not be misled

By the lies we are fed

We will not enforce freedom with an iron hand

While sticking our heads in the sand

And ignoring the loss of our own freedoms:

            Freedom of speech

            Freedom of choice

            Freedom to teach

            Freedom of voice

 

We have done more to diminish our freedoms with our own denials and lies

Then any could do with four planes in eerily blue skies

Our nations encroaching mediocrity

Painted as patriotism does not fool me

I will not participate in a misguided pep rally

For an international football game with a death tally

And it’s true that my one voice may be small

It’s true it may not be heard at all

But if you speak out with me

Then emerges the possibility

That all of us will be

            Heard

And rest assured

There will be persistence

In the rejection of resistance

To the party line

But it is not yours and it is not mine

 

I will not accept this

Continue to reject this

Until more of us accept our arrogance

And are ashamed by our ignorance

And act

Forcing the moneymen to react

Or move aside

To avoid the tide

Of America propelling itself to a new day

We must accept that it is a long hard way

To a path of empathy and peace

But it is a place that we can reach

If we sing loud enough

Stand proud enough

Fight long enough

Are strong enough

We will surpass together our individual inability

To affect change

Together we will counteract the eventuality

Of wars being waged

I believe in our country can become more than it has been

That coming together we can truly begin

To take our place

Not just take up space

 

Together we can alter the way in which our country behaves

To truly reflect that this is the land of the free and the home of the brave