Thom Garzone

In Memory of 9/11

America awakens.  Two jets slam into the Twin Towers.  A frenzy of city dwellers

below, scatter under ashes, floating down on what would've been an idyllic morning,

now a surreal scene. Sirens scream, EMTs race toward the burning infrastructure in

turmoil. In this moment we only wonder why, or why it took so long to comprehend

its extent when terrorists assaulted these weeping children of America, subjecting our

country to now be under siege. That morning I turned on the news. Reporters still didn't

what know to make of it until the second plane hit. Our lives twirled about on that Tuesday

morning.  Shortly, another plane crashes into the Pentagon, and yet one more overtaken by its

passengers aimed at The Capitol or The White House. Meanwhile Manhattan spews

an ugly smoke, choking from fear. Firefighters buried in tragic chaos.  As New Yorkers

wait for this to end and grasp the disaster's magnitude, the South Tower descends.  So we

sift through rubble and malice, through remains of companions, family, and fallen civil

servants. Often their photo sits in remembrance behind a candle flame. There in this

pyre of debris a mound among strong spirits is gathered for those who fought through

the horror of September 11th, who resisted and endured for countless generations ahead,

who shall recall how the structures crumbled and the screams of agony, or how each denizen

coughed up blood and sorrow for in that memory lies an auspicious future.

 

Samuel and the Lost District

I come to the day shelter to volunteer on Tuesdays and see Samuel, one of the brothers from Peru, whose younger sibling drowns himself in cheap rum and drains his soul within chemical release

Samuel had fallen asleep in the snowbanks on Americana Boulevard, only for him to awaken in the OR without half of one leg

Samuel’s now bound in a wheelchair, the sounds of his native tongue buried below science books sought and whispering in the soil, his soul sacrificed for an industrialized society

His amputated leg embodies a defeat of an indigenous culture, overran by conquistadors, lands surged over in highways and overcome by the great ships of alien gods

A humble fellow vagrant wheels and pushes Samuel around, to the mountains of his mind, to oceans abound upon his continent

I notice him moving to the counter, realizing the soup I serve for him is poison, and grasping the branches of his family tree fallen in silent rain forests, his women ravaged, kingdoms and temples plundered

But here the canoe that transports Samuel results in an irony embedding his amber skin, his lost culture, and I only can continue to clean dishes and think of his Americanized name, the firewater his brother washes down in mantras to the Great Spirit, or shaman who shall never guide him to an eternal Mother Earth

Later, I leave for next door to monitor the computer lab, and doubting how my service may or may not impact Samuel’s lost leg, that perhaps the bio-tech era will cure diabetes, frostbite, and a sickened society spilling its insane scenarios upon an innocent tribe

The Vast Wasteland

Sitcoms impede my brain's activity

spewing fantasies on youth's frailty

with unreal idiosyncratic narratives.

Reality TV redundancies

crowd visions of humanity into conflict.

Morning news irrelevance

sheds external falsehood

as innocent pawns awaken.

Game shows and soap operas

weep the blood of time

dragging onward past frozen audiences.

Late night insomniacs

deceived by the transparency of production.

Crime and medical dramas

whisper immortality

and we adjust the volume up or down,

regulating our right to choose,

these viewers who switch

the power button on and off.