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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 7 of 7. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by Atticus on September 30, 2004, at 10:30:27
Apocalypse Lips
Just another dawning morning
Under Orange Alert
Beneath the sword of Damocles
Here on the isle of Manhattan,
And I’m puckered up to kiss
The apocalypse’s lips
But first I’ll find out
What Paris Hilton’s
Been up to now,
And whether the Yanks
Swept the Twins
In yesterday’s double-header
Amid the down-to-the-wire
Race in the AL East division,
While phantom chrysanthemum
Mushroom cloud blossoms
Rise on white-hot stalks
Against the so fine noontime
Sunshine of blue-sky horizons.They’re selling sugar-frosted cookies
Of the Twin Towers
Down at Ground Zero
Concession stands these days,
And with each luscious bite
You can duplicate
The obliteration of the buildings
While waving cheap souvenir
Toy plastic flags
With your other hand
In reverent stars-and-stripes
Salutes to the open graves
Formed by cement and slurry,
Abysses of the missed,
Where ghostly dying cries
Ride the swirling winds
Rising from the 70-foot pits.
And the sidewalk salesmen
Get defensive when
You question their intentions
And they whine
With wounded pride,
“Hell, a man’s gotta
Make a living.”
-- Atticus
Posted by Jai Narayan on September 30, 2004, at 14:13:26
In reply to poem ... Apocalypse Lips, posted by Atticus on September 30, 2004, at 10:30:27
> Apocalypse Lips
>
> Just another dawning morning
> Under Orange Alert
> Beneath the sword of Damocles
> Here on the isle of Manhattan,
> And I’m puckered up to kiss
> The apocalypse’s lips**what, who's lips?
> They’re selling sugar-frosted cookies
> Of the Twin Towers**Okay, I'm gullible...but? Is this real?
> Where ghostly dying cries
> Ride the swirling winds
> Rising from the 70-foot pits.**Where were you when the towers came down? we may have to go to social....scary thought...to discuss.
> “Hell, a man’s gotta
> Make a living.”**this is capitalism at it's finest!
great poem.
Jai
Posted by Phil on September 30, 2004, at 18:35:47
In reply to poem ... Apocalypse Lips, posted by Atticus on September 30, 2004, at 10:30:27
I like this part alot. Thanks.
While phantom chrysanthemum
Mushroom cloud blossoms
Rise on white-hot stalks
Against the so fine noontime
Sunshine of blue-sky horizons.
Posted by Atticus on September 30, 2004, at 22:59:23
In reply to Re: poem ... Apocalypse Lips, posted by Jai Narayan on September 30, 2004, at 14:13:26
Hi Jai,
The phrase "And I'm puckered up to kiss/The apocalypse's lips" is just a metaphor that anthropromorphizes the hovering sense of imminent disaster that so many of us in Manhattan have just come to accept, yet also the duality of our thinking, where we shift mental gears from big worries to trivia and back again almost constantly. In this case, the first verse goes from Orange Alert and armageddon to Paris Hilton and the American League East division race and then back to the apocalyptic vision of imaginary nuclear mushroom clouds, which are ironically juxtaposed against today's blue sky.
Yes, the frosted Twin Tower cookies and tacky sidewalk vendors who peddle them are absolutely real, and have become something of a cause celebre among the papers, especially the tabloids. They're generally seen by natives such as myself as an example of just appalling insensitivity. Mostly, out-of-towners who treat the Ground Zero site as just one more tourist stop, like Rockefeller Center and the Empire State Building, are the people buying them. To them, the whole thing was a reality television show; they don't understand what it meant to those of us who saw that monstrous cloud engulfing downtown.
I was at a meeting at work (my day starts at 8:30). A friend named Steven burst into the conference room and told us to lower the big screen projection TV. After a few minutes, most of us went outside to see the billowing cloud itself. We were well out of the danger zone, but I swear to God, it looked like a scene out of "Dante's Inferno", a circle of Hell viewed from a distance. We all started dialing our cell phones like lunatics, but with millions of other people in a 26-mile-long space doing the same thing, no one was getting through. When the South Tower did come down, we really couldn't grasp what we'd just seen. We had to go back into the conference room and check with the television to make sure our eyes weren't playing tricks. None of us could believe that something so titanic could come down in seconds. Anyway, three years later, this is where I (and many others) stand on the events that continue to shape our lives. My brother, who lives only a few blocks away from the UN, is constantly getting stopped and having to produce ID for cops to show that he lives in the area. (And he's dressed like the high-priced lawyer he is!) I can't imagine what they'd make of me, although I've gotten to his apartment without much trouble in the past. I think the difference is that he travels mostly above-ground, while I tend to favor the subways. Atticus
Posted by Atticus on September 30, 2004, at 23:04:11
In reply to Re: poem ... Apocalypse Lips, posted by Phil on September 30, 2004, at 18:35:47
Thanks, Phil. I appreciate your kind comments. The imagined spectre of destruction never seems far away, yet a lot of us have just come to see it as we would the possibility of getting hit by a city bus -- albeit on a much larger scale, obviously. You just can't live in a state of dread forever. Atticus
Posted by saw on October 1, 2004, at 2:59:53
In reply to Re: poem ... Apocalypse Lips » Phil, posted by Atticus on September 30, 2004, at 23:04:11
I am not American but your poem made me feel as though I am. I truly felt much emotion in your words. My brother is married to a wonderful American lady and lives in New Jersey. I miss him and remember being frantic about him on *that* day. Guess I cannot even begin to imagine what everyone went through, and are still going through, just because of that damn day!
Sabrina
Posted by Atticus on October 1, 2004, at 8:09:33
In reply to Re: poem ... Apocalypse Lips, posted by saw on October 1, 2004, at 2:59:53
Thanks for the kind words, Sabrina. This was an attempt to capture in a brief sketch the mental strategies and dark absurdities that Manhattanites like me experience and encounter three years out from from the darkness at noon. Atticus
This is the end of the thread.
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