No Golden Phantom
(In Remembrance of 09/11/01)
by Nevada Kerr

You could do it in your sleep
Cause whole nations to fall and crumble
Like a cosmic whirlpool, you bring down land, sky, trees, men

You sell dead things
Make a game of love and lovers
Like an eternal night, you descend upon the dispossessed

Bound to pursuit, we search you out again and again
In hidden places and caves we found you celebrating
There you remained concealed for centuries
No one unburying what you made from poison thoughts

You, who we had forgotten for so long, vowed to return
We didn't believe you
We don't believe anything you tell us
Still we've grown accustomed to this common treachery you share

You occupy the space reserved for tourists and terrorists
On this altar of your own making you radiate madness
And feed on it like a hungry orphan

We find you on TV, in magazines, on street corners
You speak in riddles yet insist on clarity

While death gets other people down
You burn the cooling hearts of ghosts
Wave your credit cards like rattling chains

Where shining towers leaned and hollow eyes retreated
You carved out our future
So many begged to know your secret name
But you refused to speak it

With claws of steel you rip the fabric of the sky
Those shapes you take on melt in the air
When the time comes we will kill you with our love
Fearing deep in our hearts that you will never perish

Written by © Nevada Kerr
15th September 2001.
(Culled from two poems written in 1995 and 1997)