Poems by Sandy Crimmins for Philadelphia Fire by Stratis Minakakis

I.

Cars, busses and trucks
Roll by parked wrecks four at a time
Unread newspapers and unwanted plastic bags
Mark eddies and updrafts
People keep to the edges
Away from litter and bursts of diesel
Which settle on all, turning us grey
Rusty metal security grates reverberate to
The thought-deadening white noise of commerce
Tattered awnings once red or green
Proclaim taquería, halal
Botanica, braiding, hunan
Bar, bodega, bar 

II. 

Signs on houses of worship
Speak of a faith in temporal existence
A creed in five words or less
Evangelical faith bible qu'ran brethren
Preacher, teacher, bishop and imam
Children and children’s children populate benches
There is love
There is family
There is god in all forms
There is a day of rest and reflection
Prayer of hope beyond reason 

III.

Sun reaches into every corner
Nothing less than a destructive force
So night time is the time
A breath of air
Neon beerlights color the grey
But those who need it find darkness
As the street jumps to the music
Of life itself 

IV. 

Until bullets
Break open the night
Mark the place
Where hate starts
Make us look sideways
See who could be blamed
Afraid of each other
Who else should we fear?
Until we see smoke
Cumulus nimbus so black
It blots out the night sky
Lightning an arc of electricity
From monstrous erector set pylons
Close on the horizon 

V. 

We come to window after window
Every one of us
We know what we are seeing
It has been taught
Someone with hate or evil or powerful urges
And an intractable disdain
Will do us harm
Here, now, so we watch
For when fire will drip from the sky
Gather in puddles on roofs, seep into cracks
Widen them, widen them
Flooding inner rooms
With a rain whose very touch will kill
This is worse than the every-night bombing of London
The shock-sudden bombings of Dresden
Nagasaki or Baghdad
We know our enemy
He is us
So destructive
So full of hate 

VI. 

Some of us go to be killed
Thinking bravery means something
Thinking better sooner than later
Thinking what else is there to do
Others wait
Line up where we hope
The attack will come from
So we will be protected
Or killed first
We don’t much care which
Some speak of earthen redoubts
Sure they could run to them
Sure they are somewhere near
Others go to the edge of a pool
Hoping water will stop fire
But nothing stops burning air
Somewhere has to be safe
We hide where we can
As long as we can
Until we feel the forward pushed air
Forced from those who went first
Smell hot iron death of
Red blood turning black

VII.

Now the crying is constant
A hundred tongues
A dozen languages
No one can tell when one person stops
And another starts
Our fear is a living thing, tears and sighs
That flow from person to person
We hide, we hide each other 

Calling
Calling us
Calling to us
Calling on us           

Now as never before
It’s time
My hand in yours
Your hand in ours
Together
We watch each other’s souls hasten clean
Learn each other’s secret names
And the true name of our joy