September 11.

   The Strike

   What the fuck!
   Look. Look ... there
   (Dumb-founded silence)
   It's going to hit.
   Oh my God!
   It's going to hit!
   (Exploding Flames)
   Nervous fingers
   search lips
   seals that clip
   words trapped
   between tongue
   and palette
   Did you see it?
   The plane.
   Right through it.
   In and out.
   No! It can't be!
   (Stone-faced shock)
   I don't believe it!
   Hand to mouth
   muffles utterances
   "Fuck."
   People running
   Covered in dust.
   One shoe
   No shoes
   Bare footed
   they emerge
   from clouds of dust
   like ghosts
   from the tombs
   they come
   through arch ways
   crowding the streets.
   Scenes too perfect

   for a movie shoot
   in a busy New York
   morning sun.

   Did you see that?
   I said did you see ...

   Someone ...
   Jumped. And another!
   Look! Another body
   Two. Dropping pass floors
   Diving, tumbling, spinning
   Escaping the terror inside
   to cast their dead shadows
   on the tinted glass windows
   and shimmering sidings.
   Bodies, Bodies, Bodies
   Plunging like lemmings
   Disappearing in a frenzy
   Through clouds of debris
   and the sight lines
   of strangely silent buildings

   Villainous confusion fixed my gaze
   Paralysed he muscles of my face.
   There! Look there! In the space
   Another plane turning, turning
   Diving through the steel and glass
   The sibling Tower penetrated,
   its slender body burning
   I don't believe it.
   It's one of his tricks
   The magician
   You know who.
   He makes falls ...
   things disappear.
   I've seen it. He can.
   But the flames
   They don't go away!
   Thick black smoke
   Angry flames
   Surge, strike
   bodies, trapped, pressed
   against hermetic panes.
   The sickly smell of flesh

   Burning. Twisted images

   the warped visage
   of terror and its pain

   This is no accident!

   Part II

   The Recall
   Two unknown ghostly planes
   Threading a flight path of death
   Burn through ribs of steel
   Rip into the body of America
   The thrust is deep. A stroke unkind
   In the full gaze of Lady Liberty
   It rapes, ruptures and defiles
   mock her promise of Security.
   The mind cracks and searches its psyche
   for images that instruct understanding.
   It scans the hyphenated Canadian Dreamscape
   And rummages its Museum of buried stories
   to unmasked Death, a White Horseman.
   It sees this ancient swordsman swerve and
   Plunge Excalibar through a shield of Skin
   Deep into the Heart of African kin
   The masks are silent, as the rivers drink
   blood streaming from her wounded warriors,
   and the lacerations of the Crossing and its horrors
   Charred bodies hang from Southern trees
   Swing and creek in the storms of Black dreams
   And everywhere, the victims of pestilence,
   famine, and disease lay dead: Cotton-pale.
   A Mother and Child, faces assembled in pixels
   disturb the ebony settings of our living rooms.
   Their pallid eyes confront us, but ask no pity.
   For the empty vessel whence Her soul escaped
   has suckled to the last drop the dying child.
   She has done Her best. She has given all.
   We are left to suffer the pain of Her final despair
   relived in a thousand disasters like an eternal hell
   These images from the fractured mind escape
   and enshroud the bodies falling. Oh God!
   Bodies falling
   from these Towers
   New World obelisks
   Twins that rival
   Cleopatra's Needles
   Wonders that adorn
   this urban sprawl
   whose majestic symmetry
   Histographic modal spikes
   Rise so high
   Against the New York sky
   They stood there defiant
   Snorting smoke and debris
   Human debris falling, falling
   No chariots to gather them in
   No gentle arms to rock them.
   They will not hear a mother's cry
   They will not witness the moments
   When Twins struggled side by side
   to stand, symbols of Western lifestyles.
   then buckled, disappeared like stars
   Dead stars sucked into a black hole.
   The last gasp of breath released
   Emits avalanches of dust, stenches
   Animated dust clouds seeded with paper,
   Office agendas, glass, paper-clips, lenses,
   Pieces of cloth, cable wires, cell phones
   Bits of flesh that imprison thoughts
   Never in words expressed, committed
   to the dust and ash of turbulence, chaos
   Chasing the survivors through the streets,
   Choking arteries that feed the City's brain.
   3000 bodies missing. Presumed Dead.
   Now everywhere white dust!
   At ground Zero, nothing exists.

   Part III

   The Call

   The mind reinvents wholeness

   and instantly creates heroes
   from the matter and misery
   of ordinary folk, men at work
   A Nation's tears like raindrops

   From the sorrow in its soul

   are shed, showering the rooftops
   writing its story in droplets
   trickling down the windowpanes.

   A media schooled at Desert Storm

   beams us into fresh petal shrines
   and the carcass remains of Towers,
   stark sentinels at the gates of Hell.
   We witness America in dark despair

   made to watch again and again
   the falling Twins of a civilization,
   And we remember the emptiness

   felt at the holes in the mountain walls
   where Bamiyan Buddahs once stood.

   The finger moves. It points
   To Allah. The President speaks
   His words gather the warlords.
   America goes back to dusty homes
   to keep the count with CNN
   to pray, to hope, support
   A President's war declared

   on illusive Afghan fighters
   crouched in mountain caves
   waiting for chariots from hell
   Death promised by Christendom
   crusaders looking for sinners
   Terrorists. "Dead or alive".
   The line is drawn. Hawks dive
   There is no place to hide.
   These are their last days.
   For a Texan has found a god in his rage
   that seeks no lessons from History's courts.
   Arrogance lost tolerance, and courage
   to pray: "Father forgive them."
   They are crusaders of Western civilization
   They seek comfort in revenge
   and the righteousness of their grief:
   Mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters,
   Husbands, wives, sons and daughters
   Friends and colleagues waiting
   To finish that disrupted call ...
   Keeping a vigil that may never end.
   They watch the yellow ribbons droop
   and fade from hope to empty pain.
   They watch the petals in the bouquets die
   The pictures and queries still unanswered
   The President speaks. "We are resolved"

   Part IV

   The Revenge

   A Texan and his Lawmen with a Posse
   From diverse States and peoples come--Galloping,
   emoting, gathering speed he calls
   on the favoured Nations. Muslims excluded.
   The Texan's Judgment is relentless pursuit
   of an eye for an eye. Some more for respect.
   For the effrontery of these dastardly attacks
   He says, tell the wretched of the earth, tell them
   America will torch them, even in their tombs
   And when they rise suppliant, "Kill them".
   As the Posse rides, contradictions arise. Citizens,
   No more questions. Texas and Saudi oil conspires.
   It is rebel sons (not parents) in distant lands exiled
   that sacrifice their lives for the sins of the fathers.
   So a dusty Afghan fighter, a former enemy, stands
   Protected by the mountains and Western bombs
   He now wears a friendly Anti-Taliban Afghan hat.
   This Holy Warrior patiently watches, passing time.
   He sees, in the distant Tora Bora Mountain tops
   Flying high, B-52 bombers slice the morning sky
   streaking across to make deadly pinpoint drops.
   Exploding, mushroomed clouds blacken the sky
   And hide the crumpled White-Mountains peaks.
   The Mujadahin warlord laughs and gives thanks.
   There! The heat from the bombs no shadows cast
   On the rocky ground, like fossils from the past
   Another time. But one degree before fusion is Hell
   Deserted by the Al Qa'ida. The warrior points. Yah!
   He laughs, and begins his descent to a ravaged village

   Where the children and his woman await his return.
   He leaves Al Qa'ida bodies in the bombed out caves
   Their comrades fled, under the protection of a deal.
   Ramadan is over. Let the rejoicing and feasting begin!

   But the White warlords man their posts in a Holy Land
   Searching for the Grail, creating Demons and Dragons
   Putting to the sword those that say no. Issuing fiats.
   Redrawing the boundaries for friends and for foes.

   Part V

   Collateral Damage

   In Canada, we are the pawns of America. Thankful!
   Willing to please. Alive in the shelter of its branches heavy
   Laden with the fruits of Possibility dangling before us.
   But not free! We pay the price of wanting all things fully

   That from high expectations entices and enchants.
   We are taxed at the border, even as our ships set sails
   As the women and children on the docks stand and wave
   Till each disappears in the horizon at the mouth of the bay
   Leaving behind the soft touch of gentle rolling waves
   nudging the sea walls to release promises of an early return.
   Now, mothers, wives and children are left to mourn
   To mend the nation's self esteem, et celle des nouveaux
   sans abri, victims outraged by friendly NAFTA crossfire.

Clarence Bayne is Director of the Entrepreneur Institute for "Minority Communities" and "Director of the DIA/DSA, The Molson School of Business." He is also a founding member of the Black Theatre Workshop, member of the Board of Directors, Quebec Board of Black Educators. He is a prolific writer in drama and poetry and is writes criticism occasionally.