Hiroshima eighty years since August 6th, 1945
Hiroshima – eighty years since August 6th, 1945
About fourteen and a half years
before my birth,
yours truly not even a twinkle
in the eyes of his then
young father and mother
the former born April 9th 1929,
while the latter would be turning ten
that upcoming November 13th
living in destitution
with her three older siblings
(in proximity to then prosperous Coney Island)
emotionally devastated crying unabashedly
when she returned to espy absent building
as a wife for countless years
to glimpse the absence of domicile
she occupied until marriage
to the Arthur Murruy star student
who became lifelong husband
wedded just a month shy of fifty years,
who knows maybe faintly linked
to the demise of ovarian/uterine cancer
that wrought havoc
within body electric of Harriet Harris
scored a victory for the grim reaper
and ushered the horror of warfare.
Given the nuclear weaponry arsenal today
August 6th 2025, chock a block
nuclear weapons of mass destruction
could deliver near global extinction
of complex life forms
across the webbed wide world,
whereat the human league
mere seconds from
the doomsday clock striking midnight
our collective ability
as genus and species Homo sapiens
to wreak total mortal kombat
and lay waste major metropolitan areas
would make unleashing atomic warfare
synonymous with the ways and means
to annihilate, decimate, eliminate, et cetera
avast swath of the biosphere untenable, nevertheless...
Once again, I take momentary pause
to contemplate horrific event
regarding unleashed atomic warfare
activated courtesy nuclear brinkmanship,
trumpeted by belligents putin on the ritz,
hence time to trot out a poem
written initially some years ago
courtesy yours truly.
Robert Oppenheimer
(Julius Robert Oppenheimer
an American theoretical physicist)
manned "The Manhattan Project",
a top secret World War II mission,
which constituted "Little Boy" codename
for a uranium gun-type
atomic bomb dropped at 0815
exploded 580 metres above civilians
with 15 kiloton blast yield
reduced 400 year old city to dust
Colonel Paul Tibbets,
the pilot/ bombardier
of the Enola Gay,
(the Boeing B-29 Superfortress
unleashed nuclear warfare
eighty years ago from date of poem)
gives cause for this baby boomer to revisit
mentally, the annihilation,
extermination, incineration, obliteration...
when the first of
two storied Japanese enclaves
pulverized vividly underscores
how trifling my current
mental health issues,
nevertheless avowedly exacerbated
with anxiety, dysthymia, hysteria, melancholia...
(from figurative northern exposure
courtesy twin peaks)
contrasted with sinister mushroom cloud
birthed courtesy thermonuclear reaction
malevolent evil tower ushered
thermonuclear age epitomizing
coup d'état nada so graceful
spelled maximum radiation fallout,
videlicet collateral military mutilation
though unwelcome vision wielded hell,
instantaneous maelstrom poised
mankind to be cured, roasted, skewered
analogous as burnt offerings
subsequent generations of victims
who survived atrocious, egregious, hellacious,
judicious slaughter can only
poorly be described
by this mortal with incurable
bacterial/viral malignant infections
aghast at such wanton killing,
more-so twenty first century
civilization and its discontents
pack a judicious sucker punch
via devastatingly powerful armaments
now exist weapons of mass destruction
by manifold magnitudes more grisly
than those "experimental" bombs
loosed upon the innocent population,
whereby 75,000 people
killed or fatally injured
with 65% of casualties
nine years of age and younger,
whence offspring of survivors
evinced excessive genetic anomalies
with fiery windy surface
(think towering infernos)
temperatures topping 4,000°C
upon terrain hallowed by ghastly
horrible deathly dominance
impressing silhouettes of victims
analogous to dark shadows
amidst razed structural remnants
ground zero birthed
sinister mushroom cloud
wickedly, ominously, and eerily loomed.
As iterated above
weapons of mass destruction
defined as a chemical, biological,
radiological, nuclear, or any other weapon
that can kill or significantly harm many people
far greater potential
exceeding innocent lives lost
courtesy one warhead
than cumulative deaths
triggered by all battles to date
or cause great damage
to artificial structures,
natural structures, or the biosphere
an inescapable fact of life
and potential looming fait accompli
as one antagonist
could annihilate another
contaminating, decimating,
obliterating, pulverizing...
sabotaging great swaths
of webbed wide world
in the process.
Copyright ©
Matthew Harris
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