After The Boom Comments

Excellent poem, stunning insights... thank you

Redolent of the silence I remember after detonating a land-mine in 1979. A poignant blend of anger and shock.

I like the angle that you come from with this poem about 911. The eary silence of post destruction is a powerful setting. There are so many unanswered questions and things that do not make sense about 911. These unanswered questions are an eary silence at a different level. The dust has settled and the truth has been covered up. Excellent poem.10/10.

I guess the majority of your readers did not connect the date to the poem. There are and have been other causes of explosions and dust to cover the sun. The poem is well written and I for one got the point. Adeline

Very thoughtful....Excellent, well penned......

...invitation to imagery with sad memories... Good poem, brother, good poem!

Excellent concatenation of descriptions.

feels like hiroshima all over again...i can see the scene in my head when i read this poem, that was a disaster that should never be seen again...but apart from that its a good poem....

Thanks for giving me signs of your life. I appreciate your side by side French/English and socio political poems.

Hello Herbert, there are some powerful images in this poem. I like the following: there are no mops no janitors no dancers no firemen no policemen and especially: death sleeps on the turf what I would like to see more is a more specific exploration of what you can see after the explosion (I presume it is atomic...) . Why can't children wail? what happened to them? and I don't mean for you to explain it to us, but find a powerful metaphor, allegory, etc to give us the 'impression' of what happened to those children. For instance when an atomic bomb goes off, some bodies get carbonised and leave a shadow on the wall that still stand. The wail of those children would then be printed forever on that stone...good luck, enea

The silence that begs for us to examine us.

Sometime its so sad but its so true Silent is deafening. Good poem and well penned Enjoyed reading it Thanks

Very vivid and tragic. Some bomb is going to blast. Such kinda feeling the poem gives in the readers mind :)

Total silence... I've written poem: Silence and echo. What do you think about echo? But after the Book of course. But total silence was heard... sometimes. Very sad but true. Thank you for this poem Dorota

a good title hides a tragic event well penned!

It is so true, the silence is deafening. Eerie vacuum as if everything has stopped forever. Great explanation, you have captured the event so well. Love Ernestine XXX

A chilling decription of what is fast becoming a bitter reality for all over the earth.

After the Boom… There is total silence No offense, no defense Everything stops There are no mops No janitors, No dancers No firemen, No policemen Dust covers the Sun Dirt hovers over the Moon. The unnatural eruption The infernal demolition Hell lives on Earth Death sleeps on the turf Children cannot wail Adults cannot yell The devils are present God must be absent Explosion is everywhere This is too much to bear. After the boom… There is total silence. Looking at L5 and L6 in my proposition: (lines) Two parallel constructed lines beneath one another form a metaphor called antithesis: meaning setting things in contrast, converse or reverse: exact or direct: Antithesis forms an opposition, contrast, balance or a proposition of opposites already proposed. So by doing this your lines like no janitors or no dancers is also meaning like no firemen or no policemen. It puts all of the items in correlation and relationship to one another; rather than a list which is a big bunch of things. Antithesis says in a deeper sense that when the simplest is gone the most complex is gone. This kind of construction here says: when one is gone they are all gone, the are one unit linked together in relationships, all their baggage as well is linked. Chained antithesis is really a nice kind of metaphor. Think about it a bit, It might be a bit difficult here to see, but with another look see it will come to you, what has happened in the lines. As a whole I really like the statement here. War is a lose/lose situation in most cases. A poet friend RH Peat

this poem is eerie but has a profound affect which leaves you astounded with the silence wondering what was before the boom! , how there was life as we once knew, which was taken out by the boom..... Silence may be golden in life, and their is dead silence both are of the same branch.... you have made me stop in my tracks and to appreciate little things in life....Thank you....splendid writing...

This brings to mind the uncanny silence and devastation of 9/11. It's like mankind stopped in mid-existence, waiting for the next breath. Well done! Linda