At second dawn,
the fat man greets
us, grinning in
his mushroom cloud,
golden hell of light
and power, unleashed
at Nagasaki.The Renaissance is over.
A shade is pulled.
Voltaire is put to bed.
Spinoza, Paine, Rousseau --
all join Jefferson
in sleep. And we,
enlightened by irrelevance,
wander, in the wake
of Nagasaki.The sleepwalkers return
and wake to find
the awful amber light
piercing lying blinds.
With half-closed eyes
we see ourselves
through the looking glass
of Nagasaki:
dead animals
with vacant bodies.Our paws rub dreams
from unbelieving eyes --
incoherent dreams
of life and progress.
Vive la liberté,
l'égalité,
and Standard Oil!
Better things for better...
Dreams! All
our favorite dreams
seem ludicrousmirages in the light
of Nagasaki.Dante descends
the easy path
into the inferno. (God!
It's hot this morning!).
We chat of death
and read the comics.
A cartoon Me
is captured in
a cup of tea
from Nagasaki.It's now past noon
and there is laughter when
I try to pierce my heart
with a tablespoon.
But our companion
leads me out
to view the world
atop a hill of rock.
And there a naked tree
against the summer sky
tells me that even I
can try to live
after Nagasaki.
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* Author's note:
This is a revised version of a poem that was first published Image
credits:
all photos used above are in the public domain. |
Collected Poems
of
Mahlon H Smith
copyright © 2005
all rights reserved