Tag Archives: nuclear

FLAME

FLAME

so committed
to the horror
they ignore,
overlook, suppress
the flame

Oh, brief terrible candle,
do you not know
that it is possible
for the atoms
in your body
to reach critical mass?

that you could blow
like a regular backya
plutonium warhead
take out a street, a city,
a neighborhood

and even then
they would not listen
would find
the spin to
cover their sins
hide their complicity
deflect all blame

but you burn small
tiny, a brief candle,
your death your own
no spreading
no lingering

sign of how deep
it runs, all
the refused shame

BACKYARD

BACKYARD

I did not sweat
through the missile crisis
I was too young, had
no idea where Cuba was
and it was too cold

testing an old siren
outside our school
fun
   sitting under my desk
practice
making perfect

that cold cold bipolar
war
    one wromg move
could get every bomb
from Kalinin to Siberia
heading for
my face
  every American base
.
but that’s geopolitics
and the worst of ideology

Oh
    beast, non-
                beast

bestial, non-bestial:

    wish there were a switch
to flick or dial to turn
to shift us, bounce
us between polarities

would be good for my
Mars in Aries issues, get
my return
      blow in first forgo
and concentrate
on kindness
     and diplomacy

and not stacking my missiles
or my anti missile missiles
right in
       your back yard

OBSERVE

OBSERVE

watch this poem
change on you

transform
before your very eyes

splitting
     of pathways, sliding
doors

two
    complete readings
whole new universes
brought into
being

in one
it goes Schrodinger
and the poor little cat
goes completely
zombie
    uncertain whether
when box
is open
it
   lives or
dies; is dead
          or alive

in another
it goes Oppenheimer
heads out
       to New Mexico
wipes

out
half
       of Japan

saw the film; he’s the man

and here you are
in state of
                 superposition

I have
never been super anything

neither
          in faith, nor reason

watch this poem watch
us both observe

DEVIL IN THE DORITOS


DEVIL IN THE DORITOS

the chips
I am eating are
flaming hot
off the scale as
regards their
Scoville rrating

each chip not a chip
as much as shot
of concentrated flame,
chemical fire
   calculated to build
up to a spike
and then
   the endophins come
floating
first in a dribble and
then
    in a stream, a tide of
feel good
a one with the Universe
though a
   furnace is raging

you in the Himalayas, up
on Everest
     about to summit K2

on every psychadelic music
record cover
            a picture of nirvana
(state, not
Seattle grunge band)

and redeemed by the fire,
purged by the near
nuclear
    (thing built
by Oppenheimer there in
New Mexico) a

picture of you

PLUNGE

PLUNGE

by all means
take
the plunge

by all means
rationalize your way clear
plunge
into bed with me

Benjamin and Joe
about to
play the
holocaust
card

cannot
help themselves
determined to
plumge us
into holiest
darkness

in the pursuit of
great principle wipe
out
   tiniest speck of life

stitch us all up good
everything sewn up
good and solid

God’s great
gamma rays

   like manna from
          above

softly
parachuting down

and me

          waiting for
birth of new universe
to have

any hope of loving you

so
   here this
my

                   suggestion
that you
do take the plunge

AND THE YELLOW FLOWERS

AND THE YELLOW FLOWERS

and the fierce yellow flowers
outside my bedroom

peered through the window
like
  security policemen

told me
harshly

      we are

all
  sunshine

in no
  uncertain terms

we are
all sunlight itching
to break out
as nuclear
fission

forever primed
but
  unable to explode

and the yellow flowers
hitting
    critical mass
    outside my bedroom

      now my former bedroom

trash talking as
              per usual but
I’m no longer
there to hear