The great, the jewel & the mother of all battles
Saddam Hussein
Al Qu’aida
You will be treasurer of my heart,
Although my body must depart
Learning and science to attain
Adam De La Halle
There is a new threat to the Allied world
Outwith Europe, from the Afghan passes,
After the mats of morning prayer furl’d,
Soldiers of Jihad tend to their classes;
What power reign’d
Thro’ their spirit’s guide,
“Paradise can be gain’d thro holy suicide!”
“We are watchmen of the pure way,
Guardians of the martyrs,
Sons of brave Hossein Fahmideh,
Drinkers of god’s elixirs,
Bringing death to the USA
& the non-believers,
This weapon unassaillable & good
Defends the faith with our last drop of blood!”
America fraught with unease,
But fear cast far away,
From cross the seas a poison breeze
Flies into JFK,
Two sleeping agents float thro customs onto the subway.
New York
1998
Secret Affairs
Old proverbe says
That byrd ys not honest
That fyleth hys owne nest
John Skelton
From secret meetings in a mountain mine
Sail jigsaw pieces, play’d with precision,
George Bush enthron’d as Larry Silverstein
Leas’d the World Trade &, for five billion,
Insures the lot
From terroristic loss,
Despite their worth long shot – plaster’d in asbestos.
Late August, in the dead of night,
At Twin Towers plain trucks park,
Men operating out of sight,
Doing something in the dark,
Then gone again before dawnlight,
They never left a mark –
Like Mossad’s best assassins in Japan,
Tunisia, Calcutta & Japan.
For Neocon, y’know, now needs,
Soon, some new Pearl Harbour,
From which fear blleds, the fear that feeds
Zionist agenda,
Whos mission is to settle fair Mesopotamia.
USA
September
2001
Terrorists
At dawn
walking alone
in the street
Arif Khudairi
As Atta travel’d to the flying school
He read a little verse from the Koran,
A system of belief so soon to duel
The decadence of the American;
Skimming the blue
With his flight instructor,
Him & his secret few, cells of sacred terror.
He was the first of those nineteen,
Full frenzied & factitious,
Stalking the airways as unseen
Servants of the ambitious
Al Qu’aida, what does this mean?
What outcome their wishes,
To penetrate the land of Liberty
& channel hate into a strange fury?
Turning off the television,
They chatted man-to-man,
Holy mission! The decision
To instigate the plan
Was theirs & theirs by birthright like the death-flights of Japan.
Florida
September 9th
2001
Twin Towers
Your light is sulphurous against the pale towers
Whose heads strike lightning into the sky,
Skyscrapers defying storms with their steel shoulders
Léopold Sédar Senghor
‘Twas early morn across America,
Fine day graces the Atlantic seaboard,
Four separate Death Squads, vers’d in terror,
Prepare to unsheathe Allah’s sacred sword;
Aft Atta’s cell
Kiss at the rendezvous
They chat, au naturelle, tho’ the flight check-in queue
How easily their fate survives
Slack airport security,
Deep in their baggage stanley knives
Asleep innocuously,
This is the climax of their lives,
Train’d for religiously –
The stewardesses smile flashes pearl-white,
“Good morning, we hope y’all have a nice flight.”
As airplanes soar to heaven,
Bound for Los Angeles,
Flights Eleven & One-Seven-
Five climb the airy breeze,
Waved off by loved ones on the ground pastoral in their ease.
JFK Airport
September 11th 2001
07:45
Airjackers
Your son has come,
To answer your call.
In my mouth and in my blood
Ali Squalli Houssaini
As the cabin crew filter’d the coffee,
Five Arabs full of fervour’s brave intent
Rose from their seats, rather nonchalantly
Stepp’d up the incline of the plane’s ascent;
“Can we help you?”
The stewardesses sought,
How deftly sharp-blades drew red lines across the throat.
Blood gush’d from each julgular gash,
Happy mood alters abrupt,
A flash of angry shouts abash,
“Do nothing else we blow up!”
Against the lock’t cockpit men crash,
More threats of death erupt,
The panicking pilot opens the door,
Two air hostesses dying on the floor.
The pilot barg’d out of the way,
New men take the controls,
Check the display, bank left & pray
For success in their souls,
While to New York at speeds tremendous on that missile rolls
Flight 175
September 11th 2001
08:20
Approaching Death
Toward other worlds they gaze ahead –
Children who, wide-eyed, become
Periscopes of the buried dead
Andrei Voznesensky
Hijackings course in synchronicity
All find & flick the transponder’s off-switch,
Ensuring their invisibility,
Racing thro’ airpsace of the super-rich;
The passengers
Back-herded to the rear,
Like poor, plague-carriers auged by an awful fear.
A sinking feeling swept the zone,
Nobody knew what to do,
Up struck a low, whimpering moan
As stark reality grew,
They fudged & fumbled with sky-phone,
“Remember I love you!”
“The plane has been taken by hijackers!”
“I’m scared…” “Kiss the kids…” “Please don’t forget us!”
Stern-faced, head-banded Arabs cry
Above the engine whine,
“No-one shall die!” their dreamy eye
Seem’d bless’d with the divine,
As distant thro’ the windows rose the Manhattan skyline.
Flight 11
September 11th 2001
08:40
The North Tower
I asked God to spare me pain.
God said, No.
Suffering draws you apart from worldly cares
Joanne Gobure
How vastly the capital of the Earth
Outrolls her concrete sprawl without abate,
World-famous monuments peep from its girth –
Liberty’s torchlight & the Empire State,
Dwarf’d by the twins,
Unrivall’d gemini…
The tragedy begins… a child points to the sky….
Peering upon the ants below,
From the hundred & first floor,
She froze dolicapaxan slow
As the wings of death did roar,
Life flashing by before the blow,
Then she was there namore,
Caught in Dantean incineration
As on all sides surges devastation.
Struck edifice stood like a rock,
Then… shook with a shudder,
Its aftershock spreads block-by-block
“There’s been a disaster!”
“Man, a goddam jet has flown into the World Trade Centre!”
New York City
September 11th 2001
08:47
A Second Plane
The glories of our blood & state
Are shadows, not substantial things;
There is no armour against fate
James Shirley
Th’alarum rais’d, so slowly & unsure
Tower Two starts to evacuate,
“Tower One is hit, but we are secure,
Go back to work – most comply with their fate,”
Watchers flock’d
Disbelieving windows,
Mysterious, shell-shock’d… the roar of engines grows
An airplane ploughs kamakaze,
Such cauterizing power,
More ferocious than the fury
Unleash’d on Okinawa,
Luggage, debris, lopp-d limbs grisly
Shower from the tower –
Lick hot smoke & flames from black, gaping holes
As down on screaming streets the sharp shard falls.
A dawning realisation
Unimaginable,
Fortress nation is fired upon
The truth unthinkable,
How can peaceful civilians be caught up in battle?
New York
September 11th 2001
09:03
South Tower
Hold me and hold by me, lest both should fall
(O in high escalade high companion!)
Even in the breach of Heaven’s assaulted wall
Francis Thompson
The city’s finest swiftly steal the show,
Stairwells surmount like salmon ‘gin the stream
For bravery applauded as they go
Up to the smoke, the sulphur, to the scream;
Many have flock’d,
Watchers at the windows
Mystified & shellshock’d… a roar of engine grows…
Clambouring over charr’d corpses
She escap’d the blazing floor
Body clad in stinging blisters
Her skin peeling, face red-raw,
Sprinted thro’ fume-filled offices
‘Til she could run no more,
When met with being slowly burnt alive
Leapt, knowing well this fall she won’t survive.
Paulo tried to avert his eyes,
He tried, but then who could?
As from the skies a figure flies
To land with wincing thud,
Leaving three hundred dollar dress & flesh-fleck’d pool of blood.
New York
September 11th 2001
09.32
Axis & Allies 