A Moment Of Silence

So you want a moment of silence?
And we are all left speechless
Our tongues snatched from our mouths.
Our eyes stapled shut.

A moment of silence
And the poets have all been laid to rest
The drums disintegrating into dust.

Before i begin this poem
You want a moment of silence
You mourn now as if the world will never be the
same
And the rest of us hope to hell it wont be.
Not like it always has been.

Because this is not a 9/11 poem
This is a 9/10 poem
It is a 9/9 poem
A 9/8 poem
A 9/7 poem.

This is a 1942 poem
This is a poem about what causes poems like this
to be written.

And if this is a 9/11 poem,then
This is a september 11th poem for Chile,1971
This is a september 12th poem for Steven Biko in
South Africa,1977
This is a september 13th poem for the brothers at
Attica prison,New York,
1971.

This is a september 14th poem for Somalia,1992.
This is a poem for every date that falls to the
ground in ashes
This is a poem for the 110 stories that were never
told
The 110 stories that history chose not to write in
textbooks.
The 110 stories that CNN,BBC,The New York
times,and Newsweek ignored.
This is a poem for interrupting this program.
And still you want a moment of silence for your
dead?
We could give you lifetimes of empty;
The unmarked graves
The lost languages
The uprooted trees and histories
The dead stares on the faces of nameless children.

Before i start this poem we could be silent forever
Or just long enough to hunger,
For the dust to bury us
And you would still ask us
for more of our silence.
If you want a moment of silence
Then stop the oil pumps
Turn off the engines and the televisions
Sink the cruise ships
Crash the stock markets
Unplug the marquee lights
Delete the instant messages
Derail the trains,the light rail transit
If you want a moment of silence,put a brick
Through the window of Taco
Bell
And pay the workers for wages lost
Tear down the liquor stores,
The townhouses,the white houses,the jail
houses,the penthouses and the
play boys
If you want a moment of silence
Then take it
On super bowl sunday
The fourth of July
During Dayton's 13 hour sale
Or the next time your guilt fills the room
where my beautiful people
Have gathered
You want a moment of silence
Then take it
Now,
Before this poem begins.
Here,in the echo of my voice
In the pause between goosesteps of the second
hand
In the space between bodies in embrace
Here is your silence
Take it
But take it all
Don't cut in line.
Let your silence begin at the beginning of crime
But we,
Tonight we will keep right on singing
For our dead.

Emmanuel Ortiz 9/11/02