HOLE IN THE AMERICAN SKYLINE

Press "power" on the remote.
Time to turn on the TV.
Turn to channel 20.
I swore I saw CNN,
But instead, I see something so unbelievable.

I look.
I look again.
Something ain't quite right.
Something doesn't feel right.
I'm watching a stereotypical Hollywood movie
With cookie-cutter action scenes,
Planes into buildings
And those kinds of things.
But it ain't what it seems.

Straight from the pages of a "Die-Hard" script,
I see the images playing on the TV screen.
I hear the words play over and over
Like a skip on a record in my mind:

"Both buildings have just collapsed."
"Both buildings have just collapsed."
"Both buildings have just collapsed."

Hollywood's into this escapism realism,
But there ain't no escaping this reality,
This tragedy,
This travesty.
Who says that life doesn't imitate art?

There is a hole in the American skyline.
Dust fills it.
Smoke and fire fill it.
Screams of pain and death and disbelief fill it
But the hole is still there, gaping, yawning.

It left us naked, standing in
Piles of mangled, molten steel,
Cracked concrete, broken glass,
Shattered dreams, shattered security

But still, somehow unshattered as a people.

(12-21-2001)
(rev. 12-30-2001)
(rev. 11-11-2008)