When I was small I watched the twin towers

As we drove to New York each passing year.

They bloomed from the water to always appear

Steady as time—yet no longer ours.

From concrete made temporal as flowers

With the crash of a plane, the stall of a gear,

The turn of a channel where they disappear

To leave me wondering where they now were.



All of the seconds, minutes and hours

Abandoned their posts from all of our clocks

As we kept watching two falling towers

That fell on the city like children’s blocks.

From those two tall tops down through their cellars,

Gone, all those stories and story-tellers.

© David Caruso

Getting Here From There
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David plays guitar and writes haiku. He lives in New Jersey. He can't see Russia from his front porch but most nights he can see the moon. He invites you to browse on over to DavidHaiku.com.

Irene you stole the thunder of our grand entrance
And made sure the spotlight was on you
For the first dance
Thanks Irene,
Because of you there will be no Motzi from Uncle Murray
No toast from the best man who was finally going to admit
to my mother, that he is to blame
for the “wrong” turn my life took
Oh so many phases ago.

Thanks Irene,
Because of you there is three quarters of a wedding cake
Sitting on my mothers kitchen counter
Headed for the garbage bin.
My father hording a salvaged platter of chilled shrimp, crab legs and crudite’
For himself, with a plastic cocktail fork keeping us all at bay.

Thanks to you Irene,
There will be no vodka bar, slice meat station, regional wine tasting
Or cheese’s from diverse European nations nibbled upon.
No pigs in blankets, hamburger sliders,
fried calamari in tempura batter or
caprese salad on a skewer.
No cocktail hour small talk
No family secrets whispered over high end whiskey
No past grudges quietly toasted and forgotten.

Thanks Irene,
You imposing blustery bitch,
Because of you the Hora will not be danced
And the ice cream bar will not be scooped.

Thanks Irene,
For not only raining on our wedding day
But for flooding the neighborhood
Causing the bridges and tunnels to be closed
And twisting the power lines into Bavarian pretzels.

Thanks Irene,
The ultimate uninvited guest
Not only did you crash my wedding day
You could have at least given us a gift.

© Joshua Baumgarten

New York recovers as Irene passes
Editor's note: Joshua writes from New York, "Here with my wife to celebrate our marriage with the American side of my family.  Due to Irene it never happened.  The big party was cancelled due to the storm.  Which luckily for us, the hype was worse then her bite."
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Joshua is an ex-pat New Yorker living in Holland. He organises the Irrational Library evenings - nights of poetry, rock n roll and casual chaos, and performs as a Standup Spoken Word artist.