Poem: It’s 9/11 Day

It’s 9/11 Day
I feel all jumpy
and June Taylor
legs-high inside.

What will Rudy say?
The road ahead’s bumpy
I miss Norman Mailer
No, I don’t, I lied

Will towers fall or sway?
Will I wake grumpy?
Vlad the Impaler
wearing Jan 6 pride?

We have lost our way,
universe all lumpy,
days grow drear and paler
as if Santa Claus had died.

Pablo Neruda, stay!
lightning cracks all clumpy
I’m a dark sea-tossed sailor.
No land ahead, I cried.
No land ahead, I cried.

John Kendall Hawkins is an American ex-pat freelancer based in Australia.  He is a former reporter for The New Bedford Standard-Times.