RSKNOTTS.COM

September 11, 2001

Why?

They shattered our glass sky,
and three thousand human shards
tumbled through holes made in
jetcraft silhouettes.

Did you see them disappear?
Did you ask the question?

Not for Jesus or Abraham this time.
Not for the swastika, the rising sun
or even the crescent moon.
You may not like the answer.
But if you would look,
turn inward.

Find the hovel where all
your secret rage demands explanations.
Find the streetcorner where all
your hidden self-contempt begs for revenge.
Find the cave where all
your private fears grovel for redemption.

Try then, if you can, to imagine
this cacophony of desperation
without respite or reprieve,
listening always to those morning prayers
and evening exhortations,
a permanent dissonance
with all silence, all peace denied,
long denied,
too long denied.

Until now.



Read A Sample

Drama
Click for sample: Never Nothin' Again No More -- A Play: Scene One
This piece, commissioned and originally produced by Miami's Coconut Grove Playhouse, confronts head-on the "taboo" issue of teen suicide.
Fiction
Click for sample: Hard News -- A Novel: Chapter One
A fast-paced thriller set in the world of investigative journalism, politics and deadly medical con games.
Poetry
Click to read: September 11, 2001 -- A Poem
Included in the 9/11 Sculpture Project, Greensboro, North Carolina



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