Poem – DO-OVER (By Ray Gallucci)

 

DO-OVER

(Inspired while watching “United 93,” the one flight that was prevented by its heroic passengers from fulfilling its mission of murder on September 11, 2001)

 

 

If you could go back

To one time and place,

Stop accursed attack

On the human race,

Could you simply choose

(Knowing what you know)

Holocaust of Jews?

Nine-eleven’s blow?

 

How would you convince

Those who could prevent?

Where’s your evidence

Prior to event?

Why would they believe

Future you have seen?

Who would dare conceive

Horror so extreme?

 

What if emperor

Of Japan you told

On the day before

What was to unfold?

Would he have declared

Full surrender then

And his nation spared

From atomic end?

 

On a smaller scale,

Maybe saving one,

Would new past unveil?

Would it good have done?

Just to have delayed,

On that fateful day,

Dallas motorcade,

Lincoln on his way?

 

What if you could kill

One before the time

Plan he could fulfill,

Would it be a crime?

Hitler while in school,

Stalin still a pawn?

Would it be so cruel

Knowing what he’d spawn?

 

Did we have a chance

To Bin Laden catch

Five years in advance

Of the plot he’d hatch?

If you could have warned

Clinton what would come,

He would not have spurned

Capturing that scum.

 

Would the Towers yet

Be where they should be?

No three thousand dead

Unbelievably?

Or would someone else

Evil have assumed

Role so steeped in stealth

Dead would still be doomed?

 

Hindsight always shows

Twenty-twenty view.

Easy to suppose

What we now would do.

But we’ll be again

Waiting at a brink.

If the future sent

Warning, would we think?

 

(Published in DANA LITERARY SOCIETY ONLINE JOURNAL, October 2006)

 

Author Bio:



I am a Professional Engineer who has been writing poetry since 1990. I am an incorrigible rhymer, tending toward the skeptical/cynical regarding daily life. I have been fortunate to have been published in poetry magazines and on-line journals such as NUTHOUSE, MOTHER EARTH INTERNATIONAL, FEELINGS/POETS’ PAPER, MÖBIUS (when Jean Hull Herman published), PABLO LENNIS, MUSE OF FIRE, SO YOUNG!, THE AARDVARK ADVENTURER, POETIC LICENSE, THUMBPRINTS, UNLIKELY STORIES, BIBLIOPHILOS, FULLOSIA PRESS, NOMAD’S CHOIR, HIDDEN OAK, PABLO LENNIS, POETSESPRESSO, SOUL FOUNTAIN, WRITER’S JOURNAL, ATLANTIC PACIFIC PRESS, DERONDA REVIEW, LYRIC, THE STORYTELLER, WRITE ON! and DANA LITERARY SOCIETY.