Live on CNN

by Janet I. Buck
September 11, 2001

Little knives and gasoline.
Paper-cutters tucked away.
Innocence is used like darts
applied to terror's target hole.
Stolen soldiers change their bands,
become unwitting swastikas.
Rifled icebergs hurled
at the ship we built
that once advanced in majesty,
mast around its knocking knees.
To quote a correspondent's eyes,
his twitching tongue:
"No words exist." The cameras roll.
Boats seem strangely casual
jetting past stone statues of our liberty.
Even in the wake of sin,
a calm procession fills the screen.
Prayer will be a metal bobbin
spinning 'til a quilt is sewn.
A nation weeps its willow leaves.
Lips should be a match and are --
lighting candled unison.

Long parades of oiled caskets lie ahead --
widows do a tribal dance.
Moccasins and army boots
will mark their footprints on this earth.
Hymns askance but screeching tires,
gluing rubber to the road.
Hands should be a million links
forming bracelets from the shame.
Bodies pressed against this hurt
is all we have for tourniquets.
Streets deserted but for grief.
Pictures of a flight attendant
heading home for breakfast
on her husband's birthday --
caught in hateful ricochet.
He'll never munch on toast again,
crack an egg without the mucus of a tear
that might have held a butterfly.

Janet Buck's poetry, poetics, and fiction have appeared in The Pedestal Magazine, Poetry Magazine.com, CrossConnect, The Pittsburgh Quarterly, Kimera, The Rose & Thorn, 2River View, Southern Ocean Review, Disquieting Muses, Urban Spaghetti, Perihelion, Mind Fire, Born Magazine, pif, 3rd Muse, Verse Libre Quarterly, Big Bridge, pith and hundreds of journals world-wide. Buck was one of U.S. poets to be featured at the "One Heart, One World" Exhibit at the United Nations Exhibit Hall in New York City in April, 2000. In January 2001, Art Villa Records released Janet's first audio CD of poetry and music called Before the Rose. It is available at: http://www.artvilla.com/shopping/poetry/rose.htm To hear a sample from the CD, go to: http://www.artvilla.com/mp3/umbrellas.mp3.
Note: Featured author in January 2001
E-mail: JBuck22874@aol.com
Writing interests: Poetry
Poems: "The Orphan", "Caught in Lesser Tragedies", "The Broken Promise", "The Gargoyle", "The Going", "The Bag Lady", "Rushing Toward Entelechy", "The Paralyzed Apocalypse", "Frozen Sonnets", "New York, New York", "Live on CNN", "America Under Siege", "Gutter Balls"
Links: Hot Links: Janet I. Buck, Janet's Latest Interview, Desideratum's Doggie Dish, Author's Den, Active Amp.org—Features Janet I. Buck, Poetry Magazine.Com-October-Janet Buck, The Part-time Postmodernist (August 2000), San Francisco Salvo, Moongate: Janet I. Buck, Offcourse, The October Country , Cafe Society: Poetry Life & Times, Kookamonga Square, The Adirondack Review , janetbuck.com, Funky Dog Publishing—Janet Buck's Strawberry Nipples, Athens Avenue—Janet I. Buck, One World-One Heart Exhibit , Ygdrasil: Issue 9 September 2000