9-11

---

From my living room
I saw dying. My 
living room was now
a dying room.
Like a dry leaf in the wind,
I succumbed to it, and it took
me where it wanted, to its own
dark, fearful place.
I watched the planes hit
the buildings, literally
enter them like they were
made from colored leggos.
I watched the fireball
like a bright red monster
devour the buildings hungrily,
and then licking its chops with its
tongue of flame, displaying
table manners from
the darkest regions of hell.
I saw people jumping,
screaming, using their lungs
and voices for the final time.
Then I watched the buildings
collapse like a pummeled boxer,
a pugilist whose legs have
become boiling
water, steaming, but weak.
Commentators said it was
the death of America.
No.
It was not the death of
America.
It was the death of
American complacency.
And this draining complacency 
will rot in the ground
and in the debris
forever.
Our eyes have been
opened by black smoke,
our minds forced to see the light
through broken glass and splattered blood,
and the odor of charred remains, and a
charred city, like all of hell came to visit
one fine day.


© Lamont Palmer

---