Some more Bad 9/11 Poetry for you to enjoy. The basic background is that average citizens wrote poems and submitted them to the Utah newspaper I worked for after Sept. 11, 2001, evidently hoping we would publish them. We did not. I am publishing them here, now. This is probably not what they wanted.
Our American Pride
by Lori Adams
Today is such a tragic day
For now we all will stop and pray
For those who lost their lives without warning
We now must face another morning
With blood on our faces and hearts full of sorrow
We know the sun will rise tomorrow
To you evil souls be not mistaken
Because the “sleeping giant” has been reawakened
We will stand and fight for those who died
You cannot kill our American Pride.
[Why is there blood on our faces?!!??!]
* * * * *
Open Letter To: Our Phantom Foe
by Shane Greer
Dastardly faceless phantom,
Cravenly skulking foe;
Slithering as the viper,
Your venomous act to bestow.
Infamy, your crowning glory,
Black as the pit whence you’ve sprung,
Spawned by the father of darkness
Whose praises your foul soul has sung.
Cloaked in his veil you have ventured,
Unbidden and secreted here,
To prey upon the innocent;
Exacting your ransom most dear.
By no noble cause may you stand forth,
For nobleness has no place in you,
To lay claim of justification,
There is no excusing the evil you do.
Pure hatred alone must inspire it,
Replete with blood-thirsty desire.
These are that essence, rather,
Of the spark which ignited your fire.
You’ve waylayed this maiden in chambers,
Invaded her privacy there,
With basest intent to maul and maim,
Disfigure her countenance fair.
Indeed, she reels bloodied and wounded,
Suff’ring your onslaught and pained;
Shocked and dismayed and shaken,
Yet, no greater advantage you’ve gained.
For beneath her visage so comely
Lays substance unapparent to you,
The heart of a lion, ferocious,
Draped in a lambskin to view.
She may appear docile and helpless,
Exposed to your ravening jaws,
But she lacks only just motivation
To unsheath her razor-sharp claws.
You’ve supplied this ad infinitum,
Her wrath be prepared to receive
When she’ll soon sniff you out of hiding
Her suff’ring and grief to relieve.
For the moment you lurk, form and faceless;
Savoring the evil you’ve done.
Be assured you’ll not go unrewarded,
No vic’try at all have you won.
Your days on their earth, now, are numbered,
God’s scales have been readied and stored
To weigh you in judgment, on passing,
When you come cow’ring before the Lord.
[If my reading of the poem’s metaphors is correct, in the second stanza America is compared to a woman who has been raped by evil-doers but who will now reap bloody vengeance on them. I’m pretty sure I have seen horror movies based on exactly that plot.]
