The Twin Towers of Love

Words on a page are irreversible, invincible,
they bury our senses

then magnify our sorrows-
twenty six letters are all I have
to make sense of this pain
and fill the canyon between

my heart and your head.

 

Words on a page cannot heal
when mankind's meanings change-
when meanings change
the journey needs to be redefined,
and old words, and old meanings

have no meaning.
When words are in shock,

 worlds collapse.
Better to write than do nothing? No!
Better to write than do nothing?
No, better to listen to the silence, and
we all deserve a moment of silence,
shhhhhhhhhhh…
Say nothing. Do nothing. Be still.

Can you hear it -
the whimpering whispers
of falling angels
wrapped in dust,
not angel dust,
but the hot grey ash
of a crumbling civilization.

In one mad moment
those planes licked the windows
of our civilization
and our sense of security
panicked and jumped out of that window,
and fell…
and the world breathed pain
and fear melted our infrastructure
and I asked,

what use is poetry?
what use is theatre?
what use is music?

what use is art?
what use is fiction?
what use is reality?”

gone Ginsberg,                       gone Burroughs
gone Bukowski,                      gone William Carlos Williams,
gone Lennon,                          gone Hendrix,
gone Joplin,                             gone Martin Luther King,
gone JF Kennedy,                   gone Malcolm X…..

 

gone          gone          gone         

gone          gone          gone        
gone          gone          gone           

Someone tried to light a candle
but tears kept putting it out
and a child asked, “Did God die today?”
and you asked, “Did love die today?”
and I asked, “Does it matter,
if you don't lay next me no more?”

 

You are gone,

extinguished from my life.
I am one dark speck
in a constellation crushed by celestial ash,
like a delicate wave consumed by its own froth,
like some ancient stain fossilized into frozen desire
submerged by a torment of moment by moment eternities,
sitting on my balcony
waiting for the phone to ring.

 

It doesn't.
You are gone.

No more you and I will merge,
sealed by a relentless tenderness

as it collapses suddenly
into a suffocating
torrent of ash.
You were the valley of a single petal,
now burnt to nothingness.
Under your skin the world came alive
and time had no Time
and words needed no Words,
and the twin landscapes of your eyes
will embed you in my verse forever
and my finger trembling down your spine
will always in my mind
split the loveliness of your back

into  two
               towers
                         of
                              love,
until, after one final moment of loving tenderness
the freshness of our primal touch collapsed.

I loved you without knowing why,
I loved you without knowing how,
I loved you without knowing doubt,
but the demon in you,
          the hermit,
                    the recluse
extinguished our flame into a nothingness
that words could not stop;
that words could not stop.

Now we all live on Ground Zero,
we all live alone;  
we are an endangered species,
we are reason on a broken skyline and
the days weigh heavy on the sidewalks
of an ashen hell
and mankind was bitten by the demons of one man,
           a hermit,
                     a recluse-
injecting the world with a toxic nightmare
that words could not stop;

that words could not stop.

Stop running from the truth    

stop running from each other
stop running from your self     

and stop this military solution
to all your inner problems.

Look through your pupils of fire,
look through you eyelids of ash;
we all breathed the dead with ash in our eyes
and it forced me to deny the supremacy of our architecture,
and it forced me to deny the supremacy of our technology,
and it forced me to deny the supremacy of our military,
and it forced me to deny the supremacy of our government,
and it forced me to deny the supremacy of capitalism,
and it forced me to deny the supremacy of our leadership,
and it forced me to deny the supremacy of our nationhood,
and it forced me to deny the supremacy of Christianity,
and it forced me to deny the supremacy of Islam,
and it forced me to deny the supremacy of Judaism,
and it forced me to deny the supremacy of Buddhism,
and it forced me to deny the supremacy of ego…

                                                                       the supremacy of ego-

- the supremacy of ego is what got us into this mess in the first place!
This place,
standing on the 100th floor of a crippled civilization:
a civilization built on anger
a civilization built on greed
a civilization built on lust
a civilization built on ego
a civilization built on captions-

 

Ground Zero is a caption,
          a marketing ploy,
                sexy today, forgotten tomorrow-

 

Did the Coliseum have a one hundredth floor?
Did the Pyramids have a one hundredth floor?
Did the Hippodrome have a one hundredth floor?
Did the Haghia Sophia have a one hundredth floor?
Did the Liurong Temple have a one hundredth floor?
Did the Temple of Solomon have a one hundredth floor?
- all icons, all smoldering in a heap of smoking memory?

 

Words on a page cannot undo the pain,  cannot undo the torment
cannot undo the affliction. These are irreversible,
                                                   irreversible;
                                                              we as a species are
                                                                                        irreversible.

We thought we were adults
only to realize we are infants bathing in putrid waters.
We as a civilization thought we were indestructible
only to find ourselves smoldering
in a heap of smoking memory.
One sting of bitter wretchedness,
one strain of inflamed torment
ripped the heart out of every pen
held in the frightened fingers of every poet
and delivered a cry that shattered the nerve of every city,
butchering the Universal Soul that had taken

10,000 years to cement
into some tenuous semblance of civilization,
                                                     … semblance of civilization

We are alive at a time after death,
and after death we pick up the pieces
of angels beaten by Time-
the broken pottery of consciousness,
the burnt paper of creativity,
the speechless mouthing of a language dying of shock:
“Oh my God!”
“This can't be happening!”
“Unreal!”
 “No way, man!”
 “Get outta here!”
“Go figure!”
“No way, man!”
and the answer is not blowing in the wind-
it never was-

it's in the heart and mind of one mad person
who chose not to leave us alone.

And our answer lies is stillness,
in silence,
in being left alone,
in silence,
shhhhhhhhhhh…
Say nothing.
Do nothing.
Be still.
Can you hear it -
the whimpering whispers
of falling angels
wrapped in dust,
not angel dust,

but the hot grey ash
of a crumbling civilization.
We all deserve a moment of silence.

I never read the papers and now I understand why-
Where is the happiness in history
          Where is the playfulness in history?
Where is the contentment?

History is a series of labels
Where is the light-heartedness in history?
and labels are throw-away lies,
disposable truths,

and our civilization is built on disposable truth,
and whether we like it or not we are caught
between the disposable and the dispensable;

and we are all dispensable.

 

Nothing in this poem is original,
nor is it meant to be.
Originality died 3,000 deaths ago.

Words could not get you back-  they are air.
Words can not replace our civilization-  it is air.
Words on a page are irreversible.
History as labels is disposable
and all we are left with are words-
         

 history is a junkyard of words…
                    poetry is a junkyard of words…

and our answer still lies in stillness,
in silence,
in being left alone,
in silence,
shhhhhhhhhhh…
Say nothing.
Do nothing.
Be still.
Can you hear it -
the whimpering whispers
of falling angels
wrapped in dust,
not angel dust,
but the hot grey ash
of a crumbling civilization…
               We all deserve a moment of silence.