Lockerbie/Pan Am 103 poems
    This is a short collection of poems or rimes about the crash of Pan Am 103. Some are written in the memory of the victims, some deal with the political and criminal aspects of the disaster. If you know or have a poem, that should be featured on this page, don't hesitate to send it to me by e-mail.
               Lockerbie Dreams

               I had another of those dreams last night
               When I wake up early I’m taut with fright.
               The dreams are so clear and have haunted me so long
               With death, destruction and anger they carry on.

               My children’s faces tell me that Chrismas is fun
               There remains a feeling of business undone.
               When Santa calls the table looks good
               but I think of the carnage in the fields and the woods.

               An anniversary passes unnoticed to friends
               While I think of all those that met their ends.
               on the 21st December nineteen eighty eight.
               Is this world really so full of hate?

               If I live to a hundred and go to all places
               I will never forget the look on those faces.
               Sheer terror is what all their expressions said
               In realisation that they were soon to be dead.

               The relatives came. Their loss was so much
               Many took solice in that little church.
               Compared to their’s my hurt is so slight
               Why was it Lockerbie? Why was it that flight?

               I had another of those dreams last night.

            R.C.M


            Pan Am 103

            One token remains
            in the belly of sorrow
            wildflowers in stone.
                                                                                     --Darle Wright Doran, Syracuse

            Bird Library assistant Darle Wright Doran won first place in the Syr-Haikus Adult Division for her poem, "Pam Am 103" in April 1997.  She wrote the haiku last year, months before the contest was announced, after viewing the "Dark Elegy" weeping mothers sculpture exhibit on the grounds of Syracuse University. "Then I went hiking at Clark Reservation and saw these little yellow flowers pushing themselves up through crevices in the rock," she recalls. "It really struck me, and it all worked together. In a good haiku, a window should open."


            Thomas Coker made a poem about his two twin sons killed on PA 103 and published it in a newsletter 1998. READ IT HERE

            TEN YEARS
            Ten years in distant past,
            since they walked among us last.
            Seems only a blink in mind eye's sight,
            that they departed that fatal night.
            New York bound on 103,
            was not to be their destiny.
            We left behind have witnessed since,
            a great crime, of truth against.
            Every year there has been a call,
            to know the truth behind it all.
            Hallowed halls say it's not to be,
            with claims of national security.
            And, those who dared voice dissent,
            saw their live cruely spent.
            Pinstriped polished manipulators,
            turned honest folk into fabricators.
            Are official secrets so dear and dire,
            to hide the murderers of Flora Swire?
            And, the other 269,
            whose spirits are so entwined.
            Narco-cops and sanctioned drugs,
            flying high with informant thugs.
            Humanitarian thought severely blunted,
            by quest for glory, never stunted.
            How could they be so foolish, so blind,
            to haul heroin aboard a commercial airline?
            Macavalian visions from the elite,
            befowling truth like decaying meat.
            Like, siteing at a few miles range,
            two Libyan jets, not so strange.
            Shot them out of a sun lite morning,
            with no sign, or word of warning.
            The two made threatening signs, they said.
            Like flying out over the Med?
            Then, near the straits of Hormuz,
            the warship Vincennes wentout to cruise.
            Looking for an armed confrontation,
            with yet another caracatured nation.
            Shot relegious pilgrims from the sky,
            without pause, or reason why.
            Then set about, as if on cue,
            to hide the bungle from public view.
            A medal pinned, a crew in glee,
            until that night above Lockerbie.
            Now tattered stars and stripes,
            spews forth words of smear and snipes.
            And, the crumbled empire who lost her grip,
            searches for a God saving ego trip.
            They must insure, that, come what may,
            Final judgement goes their way.
            For, the truth would be, should it get through,
            Pan Am Gate and Waterloo.

            OUR COUSIN VINNIE

            Vinnie Cannistraro likes to say,
            he's retired from the CIA.
            Spends his days now pick'n
            round the circuit of rubber chicken.
            Giving to all who will
            the good ole boy company spill.
            The Rotary club's feature attraction,
            dirty trick tales and covert action.
            Days in Rome with Ollie and Ames,
            playing intriguing intel games.
            After dessert he likes to quip,
            how CIA found a micro-chip.
            Hanging in a big pine tree,
            two years after Lockerbie.
            Tell us Vinnie,
            how can that be?

            L.K.C.3.

            The Vincent C. - Poem

            A bomb was put aboard a plane;
            And you will never know.
            That all those people died in vain,
            from seat to aisle to row.

            Ten years have passed and that's not fair
            on whom I put the blame?
            Let's find two boys with curly hair
            in the 10-most-wanted-hall-of-fame.

            We want to see someone in jail,
            to cover up our traces,
            and even if I still do fail,
            we cannot loose our faces.

            They'll babble up each 21st
            I know it to perfection!
            We do not care 'bout who is cursed,
            but worry 'bout election.

            The relatives keep telling me
            they are afraid of flying,
            I laugh because they do not see,
            how badly we are lying.

            Some people really tried to find,
            the truth of 103,
            We didn't treat them very kind,
            but don't blame that on me.

            I know who was behind the crime,
            but don't you ever tell,
            unless you like to spend your time,
            with others in a cell.

            Evidence ? We make our own,
            unless we get a letter,
            from one who is a bigger clown,
            who's evidence is better.

            My country first and victims last,
            the truth just doesn't matter,
            and even if 10 years have past,
            my lying still gets fatter.

            You're asking me how I still can,
            be living with this story,
            and keep on looking like a man
            that's polishing his glory?

            I really cannot tell you, so,
            There is no easy reason
            for what I have being doing, yo ,
            is plain and simple treason.

            But if you want to blame the guys,
            who lied on all our nation:
            you better ask the master spies:
            the Bush administration!

            ZD-752

            Elegy I
            For Harold Hart Crane (1899-1932)

            Poised on the edge of an empowered age,
            Despite youth, wise as a solemn sage,
            Hart Crane agonized as this century
            Succumbed to the rule of industry.
             
            Trapped yet enraptured, he watched a bridge rise
            From scraps to a vision brushing the sky,
            Drew from this Brooklyn sight inspiration
            To face his fears through their liberation:
             
            Intense, in tune with his world's path forward,
            Into forms of phrasings his word he poured,
            Lifting from yesterday's fields of sorrow
            Treasures for the day, hopes for the morrow.
             
            His quest, while quelled as his name became known,
            Haunted despite the promise he'd shown,
            Or liberated him, and set him free
            To leap to his death in the swirling sea.
             
            A native son immortalized through lore,
            He remains homeward bound forevermore,
            Yet another wonder that somehow passed,
            Too soon and too quickly, from our grasp.
             

            Elegy II
            For Turhan Michael Ergin (1966-1988)

            Poised on a shadowed stage before his peers,
            Contained, controlled despite his fears,
            Turhan Ergin, a young student actor,
            Breathed life into a brooding character.

            For a brief, charged time he held spellbound
            His silent audience in that tiny round,
            With a performance that made evident
            His passion for the art and his talent.

            A lover of life, a bright dark-eyed star,
            So sure his plans would take him far:
            London studies, then home to celebrate
            And greet the year in which he'd graduate.

            But his return flight, Pan Am 103,
            Over the Scottish town of Lockerbie,
            Exploded in a fiery, mid-air shower,
            A hellish testament to a madman's power.

            A beloved son lost on a distant shore,
            He remains homeward bound forevermore,
            Yet another wonder that somehow passed,
            Too soon and too quickly, from our grasp.
             

            Elegy III
            Afterword - 1995

            Poised in the century's final decade,
            I grieve for the towers Crane might have made,
            And wonder where Turhan would be giving
            His next performance, were he still living.
             
            Could the poet possibly have foreseen
            The painful potential of industry
            In wars fought piecemeal all around,
            No longer reserved for the battleground?

            In just sixty years since Hart Crane's death,
            In conflicts of inconceivable breadth,
            We've created a chilling legacy
            Of bitter quests fueled by power and greed.

            And each new bombing in New York, England,
            Oklahoma, and the skies of Scotland,
            Adds to the magnitude of our loss,
            The final tally of human cost:

            The number of beloved sons and daughters
            Killed in our era of endless slaughters,
            The countless wonders that have passed,
            So soon and so quickly, from our grasp.

            Karen DeGroot Carter (karen.carter@mindspring.com)
            SU Class of 1988