nuclear – poems 2 die for

CADMUS

were given the instruction
to be bounteous and
multiply

as for beauteous
were given that manual too

and now you see
our seed proliferate
our deeds profligate

spreading
the open market of
our rationality across
every horizon, vista
to vista
high and low

and those teeth
we planted
how fertile they proved
to be

star seed springing up
mirror demons more
than ready
to come to blows
force the issue with us

breed,
split, chain react

teach us how the ultimate
physics of our protection
crazy virus of
our
desperate war for
preservation

will be
the destruction, the death of us

SCRIPTURE

thick smoke pouring
skyward indicating
target-rich environments

things
balanced on
a scalpel-sharp
knife edge
nuclear option
not least of all

and here I am in
the basement stack
a year before
we met
used to chat
in this exact place

half
a century ago

here I am
deep down in the
bowels of the University library
(the same
library destined
to burn)

reading
the Upanishads, wondering
about the nature
of consciousness,
transcendence and
this thing
they call the
soul

outside the thick rain clouds
hitting us with an
insane deluge
as they cross
the mountain

and
me diving deeper into
these sanskrit scriptures
(in translation)

losing all
sense of
space and time

the ghost presence of that
briefest moment
of being
together,

swirling about me
unseen, promise of
something
beyond special
never destined
to be

those thick clouds rising
above an expanse
of ferocious
flames

this is not going
to end well

chance that
what ends it
ends everything

so much
for all of us to lose,
we
played this so badly
so stupidly,

the laws of physics
that tell us
we are all
if small
matter

infinite energy
a small Sun a
flash of light of
miraculous intensity

and
crazy as it sounds, obessive
truly

the balance
slipping, tipping

thinking of you

something of the truth
of you there
in those scriptures

SO FAR

so you were born/
cloned to
protect our crowning
achievement

our ability to
split the atom release
planet destroying power

which have become
so widespread every
nation, family,
individual
owns at least one

bare minimum
essential for humanity to survive

for without
fear of mutual destruction
what might
keep us civilized?

to destroy everything
wipe out one’s neighbours

every citizen across
the globe’s inalienable right

testimony to
the vast advances
in wisdom and knowledge
we have made so far

LEGACY

“It is your destiny!” Darth Vader, The Empire Strikes Back

at me again
about all the time
on my hands

call it
free time
(corporate
joke whose
punchline I
don’t get)

spending time
killing time
writing ace poetry
winning
at Mah Jong

when I could be
working more profitably
making nuclear weapons

filling covering
the planet with them
to express
my innate sense
of manifest destiny

fireworks display
for the ages as you
would have
to agree

closest thing to the Big Bang
could me my huge legacy

WHOLE PACKAGE

this is my
box

my beautiful package
devised, constructed, fabricated
to enhance,
verify, verify, rectify
this most wonderful
of weapons

so many thousands pointed
at each other (every
megaton worth
millions)

so now we have
more than enough to go round
protection, satisfaction
for all
no one to go needy
we guarantee you your share

so just put them in this box
here according to the wording
looks so nondescript
but it’s
marvellous, glorious I swear

look how eager it is
to embrace,
sword-swallow each
pointed warhead

turn them into
art, sheer poetry, true
beauty
as they disappear

somewhere, anywhere, nowhere
who gives a flying f where
they went to
disappeared to

leaving us
cold and alone no hope
of
final winter
ultimate prophecy

not the case with
all those
other worlds in
their parallel universes

ours
somehow surviving
beating impossible odds
of so
doing, of our
contriving to do so

a blip
on a switch, screen
misread, word
mistranslated

they got the required treatment
the whole package as detailed

LOVERS

millions
were making love
when the bomb
dropped

a fat few megatons
vaporized them instantly

moment when
dream and desire
annihilated themselves

love and death
in dark exactitude
of intensity
so mirroring each
other

as if the species
was fucked from the moment it began

but
the poem still here

jury out
clock still ticking

lifetimes of love
still to resolve

UNDER WRAPS

Rutherford split it
in a laboratory
at my alma mater
(kudos
to that)

then
over Bikuni Atoll

air burst.
over Nagasaki

barely tested and
rushed into action
could have ended all.wars
previously if
as
conjectured
had set the atmosphere on fire

be thankful
for small mercies

atom split
world went hush-hush,
furtively fissile

pandora’s box within
a box within box
inside Schrondinger’s
thought-out, Cheshire cat
beaming
wave collapse experiment

in Miss P box (box according
to Madane P (P for plutonium)
the weight of
secret subterfuge
lethality
of
big lie

obviously satanic in its ceremony
dark critical mass

common (and uncommon
sense) dictating

must keep the sure thing
odds-on holocaust
forever
under wraps

BEYOND BELIEF

The Devil chuckled
toe-kicked a charred bone
which skidded along
what once was a road

even he
who had seen, had created
so much destruction
found it hard
to take it all in

as he confessed to
his key lieutenant
joining him in the morning
for his tour of inspection

but then he thought
on the ones who
had done this
and his earlier mirth returned

yes those missile messianics
desperate to scorch the planet
fast-tracking to rapture

“I love the smell
of nuclear fission
in the morning

it is
the smell of purity
of transcendence
beyond compare”.

NUKE

I sense
your guard is down

at long last
it is the moment for
which I have been waiting

I am the dark secret of the stars
about to manifest
in the high street
in your back yard

targeting each and everyone of you
since they first broke my code
found my formula

I am your consummation
devoutly to be wished
I am
your longed for apocalypse
in fissile person

I am everything you wanted
the embodiment of everything
you promised yourselves

I have
always been your fate
rather now
than too late

I am what was written
what you tell yourself
is the truth of scripture

am
your special place
what was always
inside you

and now I find you sleepwalking
brainless, dissolved into shadow

believe my task is done
have done my duty
can now rest in
beautiful silence

bury my power
for another few million years.

TARGET

you talk the stealth
of first strike
they won’t
know we
are coming

and so we both fire
though no one is coming

this beautiful
death technology
such a
shame,
if put to waste

what use being born
with a price
on my head
target on
my back

and Einstein’equation
demanding final vindication