TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO THE TOWERS FELL

by Al Ortolani

September 11, 2001 by Ann Telnaes

In twenty-five years

I lost two sets of parents. All four

of my children married happily. My wife

& I traveled to the Blue Mosque, faced Mecca,

Watched the whirling dervishes.

                                  The alignment of planets.

In Athens we took a selfie outside Socrates’s cell.

I retired from caving & mountain climbing,

made peace with the Catholic Church,

almost became a Buddhist like Thomas Merton

almost became a Buddhist. Gave my kayak

                                    to a duck hunter.

Kept my paddle in case I was ever up a creek.

My daughter taught English in Chinatown.

When the Towers collapsed, the school filled

with dust & debris. The children crawled

along the hallway wall to the gymnasium.

My daughter, moving back to Kansas in 2000,

called & called the school on her cellphone,

prayed for the parents rescuing their kids

                                     under the basketball goal.

Since that day we’ve had six grandchildren

added to our family. Two cats have died

& I’ve buried them under the Japanese maple.

                                     I own the same Toyota.

We rescued a dog at the beginning of Covid.

He has grown & been loved & is living

what people call his best life. He has visited

the mountains & the desert & the ocean.

He’s been kicked out of poetry readings

for whining at poorly written lines.

                                      I was told in Spain

that we had an idiot for a president. America,

once the shining light of democracy is an

embarrassment to me. Stupidity in red & white

& blue. NATO rotting. We’ve threatened

Greenland with invasion. Canadians flip us the finger.

Our president renamed the Gulf of Mexico &

Lake Ontario for America & the Kennedy Center

for himself,

                   and & and & and, each American

promised five thousand dollars if his sycophants

were elected in November. The Towers fell

twenty-five years ago, since then we’ve attacked

Iraq & Afghanistan & Venezuela & Iran,

                   our migrants in the streets.

We honor our dead with more dead. Our tears

with Taps. War begets war for generation upon

generation.

                    Someone smart said this.

Saint Peter in his cell. Gandhi making salt.

Mother Teresa in her slums. Chief Joseph

who today will fight no more forever.

Ukraine & Gaza & The National Parks.

There is no god, but God. No death, but Death.

No poem in the streets, but the Rant.

Two of my grandchildren are eligible for service

in the military. I consider a house for them

in Canada near my cousin Tony who fled Nixon

across Lake America in seventy-one. Today,           

                    I tipped the kid on the trash truck

twenty bucks to haul off my dead television

for his supper.

Al Ortolani is a poetry editor for the Chiron Review. His poems have appeared recently in Rattle, One Art, Pithead Chapel, and Muleskinner Journal.  New York Quarterly Books plans to release his poetry collection, American Watercolor, in early 2027.  

LATE NIGHT IN A SMOKY BAR AN OLD SWASTIKA DRINKS WHISKEY WITH THE GODDESS ISIS

by Kit Loney

You say a terrorist stole your name? I hear you, sister. Back in the day I was easy in my skin, passed among the creatures of the earth like a fine breeze. I was whirling dervish. Pelican diving. Windmill. Showed travelers the way to Buddhist temples. Would appear on kimono sleeves in sky-blue silk brocade to gather good fortune. Faced left in Sanskrit to juggle dots and dance on pointed toes. Man, those were the days. The Navajo would invite me to kneel on woven carpets for sacred healing chants. I was earth, air, fire, and water. north, west, south, and east. Then one day I’m grabbed from behind, knocked out cold. In fog of fever dreams I’m something small and lethal, like a pistol, dread burning up red from the tail of my spine. Wake up decades later. Splitting headache. Hands covered in blood. These days the Japanese kids call me Mangi, some hashtag to hip as if that Hitler nightmare never happened. But sister, I‘m still covered in scars, still shaking. Oh God! What have I done? And this new tide of angry men with their hands clenching my every arm. No ocean on earth is deep enough. Sister, help me, please!

Kit Loney comes to poetry from a career in visual arts. Her poems have appeared in Prime Number Magazine, The Ekphrastic Review, Fall Lines, Emrys Journal, Kakalak, Yemassee, Qarrtsiluni, Waccamaw, One, and Poetry East. In 2012 she received the Carrie McCray Nickens Poetry Fellowship from the SC Academy of Authors.