Our Very Own
The memory, brutal and vicious,
Is carved in the soul forever.
Grass and a glaring gash of orange clay stare
Where once the building proudly stood.
Wooden crosses and fake flowers woven
Into a chain-link fence seem sacrilegious.
The crosses fashioned from fallen buildings' wood
Create an eerie canvas against the city's horizons.
Pigeons now roost in bombed out windows
Of contiguous decaying buildings.
Surrounding office buildings are blemished
And pock-marked with shrapnel,
Inhabited by birds, scurrying rats and ghosts.
It's hard, very hard, to escape the ghosts,
The insistent, invisible demons
Who swagger over the city of robbed innocence.
This is a place where hate exploded.
The bomb had the power ten times a hurricane,
Creating carnage of warlike proportions.
Who could do such a thing?
Remembering the New York Trade Center,
The Arabs were quickly accused.
But, alas, it was one of our very own!
What makes a person harbor such evil
To erupt in such devastation?
The memory, dark and hostile,
Will linger beyond the last breath.
Collapsing rescue workers jostling body bags
And damaged children over mountains of rubble,
Through smoke so dense it burned the brain.
The children - live, breathing innocents,
Many, in a split second, turned into angels;
A life, a promise cut short, snuffed out,
Before it could take root and grow.
Survivor guilt hangs heavy over survivors.
Some wish they had died rather than
Live with the terrifying memories.
The myth of the windswept prairie detached
From the rest of the nation's ills,
Has forever been irrevocably shattered.
This city where cowboy boots click down sidewalks
And endless trains rattle the stockyard,
Is totally impotent in trying to shake the anguish.
There were some but few, miracles that day.
For reasons known only to Him,
God, in his mercy, was excessively stingy.
Many who survived lost hands, legs, eyes
Or suffered psychological trauma and nicks
Which will obtain for tenured existence.
The devastation recurs like daily nightmares.
The slaughter and maiming of so many –
Legacy – courtesy of one of our very own.
Madelaine
Bright, brash and bold,
Body carved lovingly by the Gods,
With world class sex appeal,
Desired by both women and men,
This robust, gritty kaleidoscopic man,
Arrogant and totally self-absorbed,
In throbbing anticipation gazed across the canal,
The gondola quietly slithering the brown water:
Venice, the city of romance and sensuality
Still seducing unconditionally on her terms,
Ready to rekindle his love affair with Madelaine
He treasured memories of her extraordinarily alabaster skin
Where veins run blue spider web infinities
Over peach and raspberry parfait flesh.
Then he saw her gracing the exotic archway,
A luminous fantasy paling everything around her,
Like a marble goddess kissed by the sun.
The old buildings shimmering in the sun’s golden light
In counterpoint to her extravagant radiance seemed dull,
Gondolas in pairs, trios, fours bobbed and danced the canals.
Gaily striped barber poles, a candy-cane fairyland;
The pizzazz of people-filled bridges at every twist;
Pigeons swooping and gliding gracefully as doves;
Music floating the canal waters, sensually intoxicating.
More ravishingly beautiful than he remembered,
The years had been judiciously kind to her.
Years he had longed for her, hungry for her touch
Desire for her warmth, need for her flesh.
She had haunted everyday of his existence
Since he coldly and cruelly deserted her.
Not a person to complicate her life with grudges,
She had long ago forgiven him.
Recognizing him, she smiled a friendly greeting,
Which he misread as he approached her.
Before he could be rebuked by his intended embrace,
"Mama, Mama, Daddy found your lost earring",
Screamed the two jubilantly adorable darlings.
Arms intertwined Daddy walked away with Madelaine
Into the setting golden hues of the sun.
He saw this man’s love for this extraordinary woman in his eyes.