Thursday, November 10, 2005

Fall

In the promising light
of a cloudless morning
rich in symbol
in early September
a city's hidden vertigo
dances out between
rippling waves of heat
shaken
by improbable fire
and much more basic
imponderables
until
mirrored towers shiver
sway
tremble
lurch against gravity
like drunks
on their early morning way
home
groan
then fall
to the curbstones
raining shattered glass
steel
and life
down to the streets
boiling chalky choking dust
out from the centre.

Dazed night falls too
as people pick
frantically
uncertainly
through the
still smoking shifting
heap
of what once was
for survivors
where there are none
under emergency lights.

That first night
at the edge of their glare
one camera's
recording eye
gropes blindly
past a billboard
from a
jauntier time
lost only hours before
still standing
impossibly
on the rim
of ground zero:
"A hit from
way
off Broadway...
"

8 comments:

ether said...

Hello, I've made something for 'Rarified'. It doesn't do full justice and I'd just call it a sort of ode to coffee, first thing in the morning and how it emanates a slow, shy smile..for the day that lies ahead.
It's on my blog.

coyote said...

I laughed the moment I saw it. That happy soul looks nothing like me (the ears are nowhere near pointy enough) but I like him. May I borrow him for a bit and post him (and a credit to you) with the poem?

ether said...

Certainly, Coyote. Have you copied it or shall I send it to you somewhere?
Also, I do hope you haven't missed seeing that His enclosed space is paradoxic, it encompasses the sky, and also that, He wraps the morning around him.

coyote said...

This was rather more difficult thatn I thought, Lucy. I mean, I know it's an important place, right? Why doesn't everybody. But "my" range, while far larger than this map shows, is centred somewhere in here.

coyote said...

Oh. And the trouble with overlapping slices of real time... yup, I saw all the stars on the walls -- and I'll copy it from your site.

coyote said...

And now it's posted... perfect! Thank you, Lucy!

ether said...

Just one thing, Coyote. I didn't really draw keeping you per se, in mind. I drew it thinking of coffee and what it does.
I could go on and on about it but if it can't be seen in the painting, it's of little use talking about it.
Cheers

coyote said...

Yes. I was making a very slim anthropomorphic joke. (Can't help myself. My friends will be thankful that it's not a rotten pun instead.) Your painting does the 'on and on' very nicely for you. No words are necessary. I'm still noticing new things...