9/11 Memorial--Texas State CemeteryEleven can haunt you if you let it,
two identical twins, like the Towers,
standing proud for their span,
as American Airlines flight 11 struck
the northern steel sentinel first;
hard to tell the difference, one building,
one numeral, from the other, a double shadow,
the first two pickets in every fence--
everyone learned in elementary
school that the eleventh moon of
Jupiter is called Himalia, the eleventh
sign of the Zodiac was Aquarius,
and it is the number of rifles discharged
in a military salute.
New Age cabals whisper that it is
the symbol of synchronicity, and
it strongly signals the presence of
some spirit essence.
Ainlit in Bavaria, and hamaika in Basque,
signaling the possibility of the infinite,
the span of earth years in a sun spot cycle,
the first number that cannot be counted
on eight fingers and two thumbs, and the
pesky gemini numeral reads the same
upside down or in a mirror.
Mathematically it is another Einstein prime,
a stormer, a heegner, all strobogrammatic
and dihedral with no imaginary part,
while reversing its digits will result
in another multiple of itself,
the atomic number of sodium,
and the exact number of space-time
dimensions in M-theory.
It is the interval between an octave
and a fourth--an eleventh;
in Igor Stravinsky’s “The Rites of Spring”
there are 11 consecutive repetitions
of the same chord.
There are always eleven men
on football, soccer, and cricket teams,
and the quarterback wears it a lot
on his broad back as bulls eye.
When Hoppy or Lash La Rue walked past
their twin pistols made the symbol as
their hero’s hips swiveled in readiness,
Colts ready to fill their fists, so that
the silver barrels could make another eleven.
So
double the twins, and they become quads,
shadows of shadows, 11:11, more of the magic,
a specific day in the fluttering banners of history;
a day when celebrities emerged, George Patton,
Pat O’Brien, Robert Ryan, Kurt Vonnegut,
Jonathan Winters, Stanley Tucci, Demi Moore,
and Leonardo DiCaprio,
the day U.S. Route 66 was established,
Armistice Day ending WWI in 1918,
the day Nat Turner was hung
in Jerusalem, Virginia for inciting
a slave uprising, and Ned Kelly was hanged
in Melbourne, Australia for not being
Mick Jagger, and the day that
President Warren G. Harding established
the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier
at Arlington Cemetery.
God help us next year
when 11:11:11 descends upon us.
Glenn Buttkus
November 2010
Listed as #23 over on Magpie Tales 41
Would you like the author to read this poem to you?
8 comments:
God help us indeed. Loved your stroll through 11 - a lot of bases covered... but every word and thought had a clarity - I found the piece both informative and entertaining, in a serious sort of way. And even with all the research that must have gone into this, and the trying to fit so much into a relatively short space, the poetry comes through as a brilliant write.
I love this elevenish piece. I couldn't stop thinking about the twin towers when I wrote me piece, but I deliberately skirted them. Speaking of poor Warren Harding, one of our worst presidents, his home in Marion is not too far from me. I read Anthony's bio on his wife, Florence Harding a few years back, and it turns out she was a lot of the guts behind the man. She should have been president.
So much information packaged so beautifully ... reading it once is not enough.
Intriguing wander through and around the powerful number eleven - myths, magic and more...
Yes Glenn, this is my favourite for this round of magpies but:
In cyber talk of zeros and ones, ons and offs, yesses and no's, 1 is a yes, 11 is yes-yes and next year if we all try really hard we can make it a yes, yes, yes, yes!
PS. If you have time, pop back for another visit.
Wonderful look at elevens...I so enjoyed this!
I'd like to keep this as a reference point..show off some unearned knowledge ( I salute you!)when next I play trivial pursuit!!
11:11..to me, it means that angels are near..So I smile!
wow,
I have been the place,
what a marvelous post.
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