Heard on my local NPR station one day last week: “One morning late this summer, Turners Falls
poet Patricia Pruitt woke up and wrote a poem full of abstract, disturbing,
apocalyptic images. She says she has no idea what prompted her to write it, but she didn’t think too
much about it until she found the poem again in late September. Suddenly,
those strange images had an almost eerie significance in the post September
11 world.”
Attempt
August 28, 2001
The last mark
the red mark
was decisive
It oblit....(O don't say
obliterated again.)
START OVER
The last mark
the red mark
was decisive
It hit walls
and sidewalk
It fell from
helicopter
propellers
dripped out
of concrete into
the bulldozer's maw
it became the sole
color
day and night
A kind of red weather
and.. (Not and. Not decisive. It was not
decisive.)
START AGAIN
The last mark
the red mark
created red weather
Day and night
It was the sole color
A sort of rain
or fog
envelopping cafes
Graves everywhere
No one could make it STOP
Not the ones with power
The ones without STOP
we're or were helpless
roofs in the dark...
START OVER
The hard thing
can't be held
or tied down,
turned off or
on This red
weather eludes
helicopters
floats alone
out of reach
As roofs
ones with
ones without
START AGAIN
The last mark
Red walls
sidewalks slid
into concrete maw
Rooves cafes powerless
ones with
ones without
can't be held
tied down
It floats everywhere
helpless STOP
NOT HELPLESS NOT POWERLESS
start over
The ones with
the ones without
can't be held
or tied down
turned off or on...
Good. Stop There.
