9-11 Terror Attacks; One Polish-American Responds

Freedom Fighter; Creator of Great Art

Porn fan

A Salute to Empty Hands

"Shall I inform you upon whom the devils descend?
As to the poets, those who go astray follow them." (The Koran, 26:221-4)

"The enemy is in the house…Oh God, do You exist? You do and yet You
do not avenge. - Have You not had enough of Moscow's crimes - or - or are
You Yourself a Muscovite? I here, useless! And I here empty-handed.
At times I can only groan, suffer, and pour out my despair at my piano!"
from Chopin's diary, at the time of the November Uprising.

I was always picked last in gym.
I do not know how to kill a man with my bare hands.
When my other cheek is turned,
it's toward a screwball comedy.

Fascists churn out gripping visuals:
Nuremberg, September 11. 
The black box records his final words:
"I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. Allah."

Only iron discipline turns the head away.
I exercise what gym class never taught me:
the discipline beauty demands. 

"Poetry after Auschwitz"? You betcha.
Absent poetry, we couldn't pronounce the word.
We couldn't move but for collisions
on sterile sand sucking spilled human blood. 

That runt consumptive Polak, Chopin,
wanted to fight.  His friends laughed.
So he placed wine corks between his fingers every night
to stretch them apart, to play.

Europe said: "Such beautiful music; these people should be free."
Thank you. But you are fickle, and will forget.
We do not: "Live as if you are free," our pope said.
And we do, at the piano, on the page, and in the heart.