Response / Responsibility
15 September 2001
Clinton Popetz

CBS spins a retaliatory mood
NPR weeps for our own
I think of the families
of murdered kids of the world
I know we have reaped what we've sown

All too soon sabers will shake
bombs will "punish",
missiles will "send messages"
fires will "teach lessons"

Safe in our homes
in the land of the rich
and the fat
and the blind
we will speak of "those responsible"
and of an "appropriate response"

But this land is your land
and this land is my land
and our chosen masters
have killed
are killing
and will kill
in our names

I'm responsible
I'm right here
My hands shake
My breakfast is threatening revolt

"The president and his advisors are formulating a response"

A response that will be worthless to me
Killers killing to avenge killing

We can do better

Humanize This
September 13, 2001
Paul Kotheimer

The kamikaze plane blew off my shoes.
The steel beams up the center all gave way.
The shrapnel hit the cameraman below.

"A few of us remembered Ninety-Three.
We knew to take our purses as we fled."

We called you from our phones as we went down.
"My legs are broken...I don't think I'm dead..."
"I made it out. I'm on the Brooklyn Bridge..."

The orange of the explosion made A-1.
A shot of someone diving off, head first.
A live feed, zooming in on body parts.
Some office papers swirling in the soot.
"And Jersey City stinks of burning flesh..."

In Baghdad, there are no skyscrapers left.

Stock Tips
19 September 2001
by Joe Futrelle

Let me get this straight:
you lay us off, then you want us all
out of patriotism
to buy the damn stocks
even you won't touch.
What money should we spend on these stocks,
our tax refunds?
Your major indexes are,
near as I can tell,
going straight to hell
along with all of you would-be war profiteers --
God can see the invisible blood
on your hands.

Benighted States
23 August 2001
John Wason

How can you not love the Benighted States of America?

where a corporation, a non-person,
is treated like a person
and in fact
is accorded more rights
and receives more benefits
than a real person,

who is treated like a non-person
and left to fend
for himself.

This Means Wha
14 September 2001
Mark Enslin

it must of been a mistake
ferdinand hadley
the poet in parenti's 'the politics of the adjectve "political"'
has been hired to edit speeches of the president and cabinet
every time a certain phrase appears
she strikes
it
leaving hapless leaders to reinsert haltingly ad lib
make no mistake about
make no mistake about
make no mistake about
it

just
when our dealers have had the whatever to withdraw from the UN conference
on racism
when indignant australians are said to avenge manhattan by attacking a
schoolbus of pakistanis
when the the gov delares wha on whoever
when newspoets fear being taken by wagflavors for an italian
just wen ho lee and vincent chin
a fictional character (whose resume they really should have read)
is mercilessly removing the struts
which prop up the wattles of the nation

make no mistake
we have to watch out for each other
and what's said