Commentary and Philosophy Poetry posted September 11, 2019


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When you think you want to forget, don't...

Suicide's Surrender

by Y. M. Roger



Unfathomable

choice: to meet death on their terms…

fate’s falling angels


 



5-7-5 writing prompt entry
Writing Prompt
Write a 5-7-5 Poem! This is a poem with only three lines. The catch is there is a strict syllable count. The first line has 5 syllables, second 7, third 5 again. See an example and details in the announcement.

Recognized


From an analysis of the 9/11 Twin Tower Inferno:
'Some commentators later remarked that those who had fallen had made one brave final decision to take control of how they would perish. Researchers say many people had no choice. Witness accounts suggest that some people were blown out. Others fell in the crush at the windows as they struggled for air. Still others simply recoiled, reflexively, from the intense heat.

A spokeswoman for the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner said the city agency had not classified any of the dead as "jumpers," a term used when people jump to their deaths, because the people were forced from the buildings.

Temperatures in pockets of the buildings rose to more than 1,000 degrees, sufficient to weaken steel, according to researchers. The first people jumped or fell from the upper floors of the north tower just minutes after the impact of American Airlines Flight 11. The heat reached people on the upper floors long before the flames. Some of those trapped reported that the floor itself had grown so hot they had to stand on their desks, according to a fire official.

"The heat was absolutely phenomenal," said Dr. Guylene Proulx, who studies human behavior in fires for the National Research Council of Canada. "If you have ever burned your finger, you know how much that hurts and how you pull away. In the trade center, it was such a hot fire. It was impossible to think you might survive. Why suffer a minute longer when it is so unbearable? It may have appeared to be the best thing to stop the pain, when the window is shattered and the opening is there."'
https://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/10/nyregion/nyregionspecial2/falling-bodies-a-911-image-etched-in-pain.html


A son remembers his dad's (a first responder) account of that day:
"As my dad and the other bystanders watched the towers burn, to their horror, they began to notice "large objects" falling from the buildings. There were people leaping from the towers, falling to their deaths, to escape the incinerating heat of the flames. "I saw two people hold hands and jump together. That made me sick," my dad remembered.
As the crowd watched in horror, my father remembers, they moaned each time another person jumped. Each time, someone screamed. USA Today estimated that at least 200 people jumped that day."
https://www.conservativereview.com/news/200-people-jumped-from-the-twin-towers-on-9-11/



Image of 'Falling Angel' by Nihal Kececi at Artavita [www.artavita.com/artists/3444-nihal-kececi]

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