The Statue of Liberty and Lower Manhattan
Shout me in the NYC window
Between Grand Britain and China
Where we rest awhile
Before we die.
Where do we live now?
Asked Mayor Bloomberg
When the walls came down on Madoff
And Lehman went belly up.
They had to keep him on.
He knew where the keys to the deposit boxes were.
Poor Rudy had sold off all his stock
In terror bonds.
Welcome to the harbor of New York
Where Lady Liberty waits with her lamp
Shining on the sewers of Manhattan
Island of hard currency.
Bloomberg watched as the SIX shove
Mary, Mother of God, up the asshole
Of Lady Liberty so they face each other
Two anxious female heads wordless
With half truths. Adams saw it in Tahiti
When it was too late to report to King David.
Saw it clearly. Who was pure and who was
Savage beast. The two women
Tear at each other with bleeding nails
Each with holy tears trailing down their cheeks
As they watch a TV repeat of
THE WORLD TRADE CENTER
‘s fall with Allah Akbar
Rising from the crumbling
Smoke. The mayor strokes
His Torah . He waits for what is coming.
BEN PLEASANTS is an anarchist poet, playwrite, essayist and novelist who lives with his wife Paula in California.