Remember it well.
(Me? I remember it.)
Not the day, the date, or the event. This moment.
(The anniversary. I remember.)
No. The moment’s passing.
(This day, five years ago?)
This. This. This moment. This one.
(I do. Of course I remember this day.)
No. No. No.
(Of that moment the shutter snapped slowly. I saw it all.)
Not the pictures. Not the continual loop. Now.
(I hold them inside me.)
No.
(Yes. Probably a reflex.)
Not the tears. The dread. The flying flesh. This moment. Now.
(I was in shock then, but I remember the planes and the death.)
This moment! This! This! This! This one! Now! Terror! Now!
(I knew we had changed and I remember the dead.)
Now! Now! Now!
(Yes! 9-11 is etched in my mind! I remember this day!)
Are you an idiot?
I am talking about this moment now! Two-thousand and eight!
Not the moment of impact!
Not the moment of plummeting!
Not the moment of being unable to breathe!
Not the excruciating video of the jumpers!
(Jumpers? I don’t recall. Really?)
I mean this moment! This one, as we speak!
(I remember the numbing hum all about us.)
I am talking about now!
(Believe you me I’ve tried to forget.)
Are you insane?
(Evil crashed into America!)
This moment. This one. This moment.
(What amount of time? In terror?)
What did you say?
(I said what amount of time constitutes a moment?)
Are you sure, because that didn’t sound like what I heard?
(When?)
What you said a moment ago.
(I asked you what constitutes a moment?)
...Time.
(How much time?)
Depends on the terror.
(So a moment can mean- Wait. What did you just say?)
When?
(Just a moment ago. Depends on what?)
Depends on the moment. How much time depends upon the moment.
(...So a moment can be a split second or less or even a bit more?)
Yes.
(I do not recall the day before or the day after, but I commemorate the dead because I certainly remember that day.)
How about now?
(Now?)
Years later, do they smolder as if they're real?
(I choose not to recall in that way.)
Do you recall what the US used to be?
(Yes. Freedom rings here. Bravery. God bless America. It’s still like that now. It’s the world that’s changed.)
No. Nothing has changed. It remains the same...unchanged.
(You lost me… What?)
This day, this moment is not being used as a tool for bettering a hungry world,
nor is it being used to transform, or scrap altogether,
A grotesquely inequitable US foreign policy...
(What?)
It is being used… just not for any good.
(How can you-?)
I would rather remember the fight… the dissent.
(What the hell are you talking about?)
I'd rather it burn, etched into my mind,
So solid inside me that in the future
This day might finally be used for good;
Some peaceful change instead of more warring.
(What are you saying?)
What I’d really like to know is why?
(Why?)
Yes.
Why does civilization permit bloody shrieking war?
Why?
(War came to us on this day!)
No! Now it didn’t! War is not here now!
(We fight them over there so-)
We begin life without weapons
(-we don’t have to fight them here.)
Why not continue bare of them?
(The US without a defense?! Are you crazy?)
THE WORLD! THE WORLD!
(Okay. Relax. Sheesh.)
Be free of them.
After all, the more weapons
and the more lethal the weapons
steps us nearer the turbulent abyss
and hearkens to the extinguishments
of the flames which light our days.
(What?)
Man at birth was naked, not armed
with knives and guns and bombs
for meaningless murdering.
(You lost me at extinguishments.)
Why permit them to flourish? Protect them?
Is it that we might remain free?
Might sideways glance and laughter?
To off the marauding terrorist
with evil in their hearts
because a bomb or gun sent their country
coffins instead of bread?
(Huh?)
Is it that we might sleep in deepness
and wake to a brighter day;
a day that flinches not at the destitute,
a day that nourishes a neglected humanity?
Would we need rid ourselves of transportation altogether,
considering airplanes?
(You’re insane…)
If all weapons were pins and needles
would an acupuncturist be a terrorist?
Might humankind be more blinded from the prick of a pin
than from the penetrating shrapnel of a bomb?
(Okay! You’re not making any sense here! I think you’re suffering from post-traumatic stress!)
Why?
(9-11. Godlessness. Hating America. Take your pick.)
Why do we pay for our government's bombs?
Is it that we can justify the difference,
the shameful, miniscule difference between
Israeli children signing rockets
intended to land upon Lebanon
and our signing tax forms
knowing the money will go for weapons,
bombs meant to kill indiscriminately?
(You need a long vacation…)
Why?
(Trust me.)
Why?
Why do we allow these villains and swindlers
to continue to send others to die;
our children to die for phantoms,
for the insidious sucking sound of greed?
(Oh! My God! I’ll pray for your pitiful soul!)
Why?
(Salvation!)
Is this the culmination of time?
Of life?
Of God?
Shouldn’t we demand they disarm?
Shouldn’t we all be weapons inspectors
dismantling death one stockpile at a time?
Isn’t it our duty to see that the world breathes?
Humanity continues to stride beneath the heavens?
Do we not owe it to creation to root them out?
To oust these warmongering misfits from power,
Every last Goddamned one of them?
(Watch your mouth!)
Why?
(Blasphemer!)
Why be threatened with extinction by God
when we have hellish weapons,
searing sun, depleted uranium and ozone,
sludge filled seas and sapping river,
and oily, mercury tainted fish and the air.
Oh! God! Yes! The air!
(You need to stop this right now!)
Why?
(Because it’s not right! This day is meant for mourning! Besides, you sound like a televangelist, minus God!)
Mustn’t we breathe to enjoy the fruits of our labor?
Mustn’t we leave this world livable at our passing?
Sleep with both eyes closed,
Rest knowing we cared?
Not be forced to recall moments of man made horror
And brushes with prowling, ticking death…
(Of all the days to spout this kind of crap! You should be ashamed of yourself! You! You’re the one who’s the terrorist!)
Why?
(Because!)
Why must I be a terrorist?
(Because, you don’t remember the lessons!)
I REMEMBER THIS MOMENT
I REMEMBER IT ALL, YOU
SELF RIGHTEOUS SYCOPHANT!
Let the world remember it now!
For God’s sake, swim in it!
Bathe in its stench!
This! This! This moment! Now!
(If you don’t love America why don’t you move to France?)
Why?
(They'd love you!)
I remember this moment!
This one now!
I recall its needlessness!
Its uselessness!
(Forget France! You can go to hell, you America hater! Go straight to hell!)
I’ve memorized its wrinkled horror!
Studied our made for TV storyline filmed as reality!
I recall this moment! This moment now!
The moment we bowed our head,
the moment we woke,
the moment we screamed,
the moment we cried,
the moment we bled,
the moment we died!
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VIRGINIA BEACH, Virginia (AP) -- Evangelical broadcaster Pat Robertson said Tuesday that God has told him that a terrorist attack on the United States would cause a "mass killing" late in 2007.
"I'm not necessarily saying it's going to be nuclear," he said during his news-and-talk television show "The 700 Club" on the Christian Broadcasting Network.
"The Lord didn't say nuclear. But I do believe it will be something like that."
Robertson said God told him about the impending tragedy during a recent prayer retreat.
God also said, he claims, that major cities and possibly millions of people will be affected by the attack, which should take place sometime after September.
The gleaming gates have again swung wide
On the godforsaken orb drifting under the sun.
We should not listen to indifference any longer.
We should not listen to those with god-smacking jaws.
We should not listen to those with money and interests.
We should not regard the voices in their slumbering lechery.
We should only listen to our gut, heed only our crimson center.
And we most certainly needn’t listen to Pat Robertson’s treachery.
If, since 9/11, terror’s been unleashed on America it has been this;
Fear of: mass killings, assassination, stroke, wrath, and vengeance.
The sermonizing, amplifying, braying man straps God to his breath
And beats down upon the heads of fools starving themselves of love.
"I have a relatively good track record," he said. "Sometimes I miss."
It is unmistakably and excruciatingly apparent that he is acting alone.
His ignorant congregations consume the roots of life’s emerald hours.
His god-smacking flock of cheerless sheep swill these tales of doom
Like children hopeful for candy or their warrior parent’s happy return.
Doom and gloom make a black gown for the gentle wind to wear
And useless tales of His spoken voice plow holes for its grave...