Twenty one 16×20’s nailed to posts.
\nBelow each, piles of flowers
\nthree feet, four feet high,
\nstuffed toys, teddy bears, notes,
\nsigns, posters, prayer candles.
\nIn the neighborhood streets around,
\nchildren of all ages chalking
\npictures and notes to their lost friends…<\/p>\n
It is all too soon.<\/p>\n
They are hollowlost, ripped out.
\nThey are still outside their bodies
\nfrom shockwave grief.
\nStill, they come to pray
\nto leave things teachers
\nand little kids might like to have
\nto write how much they were loved
\nhow much they will be forever missed
\nto light candles hoping for angelsong…<\/p>\n
I take the pictures.
\nI make the videos.
\nI write the words.
\nI look at them all in my quiet.
\nMake decisions about the when
\nand where of them.
\nThe ones no one but I will see
\nhave a long building deep in the background,
\na building with giant boarded up
\nwindows all around.
\nA building that can’t possibly hide
\nthe atrocities inside. The horrors inside. I know.
\nThey know. The world knows.
\nBut, I can’t bring myself to show it.
\nI can’t bring myself to show it.
\nI look at them more than
\na few times a day still.
\nWe all know
\nand I don’t want to show you.<\/p>\n
We smell the flowers
\nfrom the bottoms of the piles
\npurifying, rotting in the heat
\nunder the thick layers above them.
\nAll the children smile
\nin their giant photos above them.
\nThe teachers smile
\nin their giant photos above them.
\nIt is raw and poignant and unmentionable.
\nIt breaks our spines.
\nThe town crawls on all their fours,
\nlimps, frail… irreparable.<\/p>\n
The blown out, deadly silent windows scream
\nall boarded up deep in the background…<\/p>\n
I will not show it… I will not show you…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Twenty one 16×20’s nailed to posts. Below each, piles of flowers three feet, four feet high, stuffed toys, teddy bears, notes, signs, posters, prayer candles. In the neighborhood streets around, children of all ages chalking pictures and notes to their lost friends… It is all…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1305,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,441],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-112115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marathon-poem","category-poetry-prompt-responses"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1305"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112115"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":112231,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112115\/revisions\/112231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}