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.