Beneath the Sword of Damocles
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Beneath the Sword of Damocles
As we nurse our nuclear nightmares
in a not to certain day
We are conjoined in common phobia
of madness or foul play.
Little children of the Fifties
hid beneath the classroom desks
closed their eyes and dreamt of mushrooms
saying, "This is just a test."
Beneath the Sword of Damocles,
possession had by all
Who’ll be the first to get one off
and spread the fireball?
Everyone wants a power sword
to wave above the next,
a challenge to the strongest,
though nothing will be left.
The chance exists to burst the sun
and hurl it in to space.
A few will long for greenery,
the world that was this place.
Speak with Japan's hibakusha
of burnt flesh, white light, black rain.
Listen to their tales of horror
feel the hatred in their pain.
With a wave of a finger
falls the sword of megatons.
Ask yourself will the survivors
be the truly lucky ones?
The American President John F. Kennedy compared the omnipresent threat of nuclear annihilation to a sword of Damocles hanging over the people of the world.
The survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings are known in Japan as hibakusha. There are about 48,000 of them living in Nagasaki Prefecture, and about 83,000 in Hiroshima.
Copyright © Janis Medders Tobechi | Year Posted 2018
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