we will never forget 9/11 / how can we forget 11/9

when terror descended / when hatred triumphed

that terrible morning / in the wee hour of three

as we watched in horror / it rendered us speechless

the towers collapsing / our worst fears were confirmed

but we were not broken / the truth was revealed

on that fateful day / we were us versus them

we banded together / now a nation divided

held hands with strangers / forced to look in the mirror

we sang kumbaya / to face our dark demons

we talked about love / emboldened, enraged

promising to remember / reliving past battles

but how soon we forgot / to the winners the spoils

what makes us great, America / First, they declared

our founding principles / we’ll build a great wall

our common ideals / shutter our borders

of life and liberty, / to keep them all out

the pursuit of happiness  / the foreigners, the hungry, the poor

for all who call this nation home / if you are the other

that’s why we gather to remember their names / we don’t want you here

so we will never forget them and / how can we forget

who we were when calamity struck / the day a madman of privilege declared

One America, Red, White and Blue / let’s make America Great

~kat

A cleave poem (three poems in one. Read the first Column in standard print as one poem, read the second column in bold print as another and finally read across the entire line for the third.)