Posted by Jeff from d53-237-236.try.wideopenwest.com (64.53.236.237) on Thursday, February 06, 2003 at 10:34PM :
Lincoln Bergman
58 years old
Richmond, CA
Poet and educator. KPFA News Director during late 1960s and early 1970s, Pacifica correspondent in Havana, 1973-4, co-founder Freedom Archives (www.freedomarchives.org). For last 17 years, science and mathematics educator at UC Berkeley's Lawrence Hall of Science Great Explorations in Math and Science (GEMS) program. Two great daughters, Anna Thai Binh and Caitlin Poema.
September 11, 2001
The eleventh of September
We are certain to remember
Babel's towers crashed colossal
On Manhattan's teeming shore
People leapt in desperation
Facing instant immolation
Flaming fuel of aviation
Shook a nation to its core.
Upon that mournful morning
Death struck without a warning
Our minds in shock unending
Throbbed with numbing roar of war
Like lightning bolt and thunder
The whole world blown asunder
Nightmare television image
Things we'd never seen before.
So many people slaughtered
Mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters
This one word, "terrorism"
Is on everybody's tongue
Nation reels with losses tragic
Horror hemorrhagic
Heroes face the flames of fury
Patriotic anthems sung.
The eleventh of September
World is certain to remember
When lion of the Pentagon
Lay wounded in his den
Now he roars in rage and panic
His armaments titanic
He will punish evildoers
Bomb to bits the Saracen.
Does Bin Laden bear the blame?
Take a look at whence he came
Fundamentalist fanatics
Funded by the CIA
Like Saddam Hussein before him
He now bites the beast that bore him
On his head they place a ransom
They will make the whole world pay.
Mobilize U.S. attack
Maybe finish up Iraq
(That's been on the agenda
Since dad sat on the throne)
Every week more children die,
Blockade the reason why
Spyplanes circling like vultures
To feast on flesh and bone.
Twist both arms of Pakistan
Take out Afghan Taliban
There, where lines of land mines
Run a flood incarnadine
As Israeli occupation
Exploits the situation
To step up assassination
On the soil of Palestine.
Rapidly the cauldrons boil
In a torment of turmoil
Drums of war are beaten
Flags of pride and fear are flown
As they launch a new Crusade
Paths of reason seem to fade
Oil transmuted into blood
Crimes that no god can atone.
It was on the same sad date
When a free Chilean state
Was so viciously cut short
By Kissinger and crew
To gain justice in our times
All who perpetrate war crimes
Must be brought before the people
To receive their earthly due.
As in Vietnam they said
As they left more millions dead
We had to bomb the country
To save it, can't you see
Will that also be their plan
To save Afghanistan?
The ghosts of Nagasaki
Gaze down in empathy.
The eleventh of September
World is certain to remember
The "century's first war"
Bush rushes to proclaim
Names network of Bin Laden
Never mind the Earth's downtrodden
Vows to smoke out every terrorist
Set the globe aflame.
Civil liberties rear-ended
Rights of speech suspended
Congress rolls right over
One brave woman who dissents
Seal up each and every border
Hail the same-old new world order
Use the anti-Muslim frenzy
To repress all discontents.
Yes sadly we'll remember
The eleventh of September
Long after every ember
Has turned to ash of war
In this tragic bitter hour
Can we somehow find our power
Work for peace with every fiber
With the world say-War No More!
The eleventh of September
We are certain to remember
As with sorrow, pain, and anguish
We pace upon the floor
In the distance hear the chorus
Freedom spirits still implore us
A courageous chant is rising
Let there be war-Nevermore!
-- Jeff
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