HIROSHIMA and NAGASAKI

Two entries maximum.

Collaborations welcome (credit will be split).

Any length, any style.

Good Luck!

Strider

http://0.tqn.com/d/inventors/1/0/9/5/1/NagasakiBomb.jpg
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_11-nzoYFuQU/Snr9XMgszOI/AAAAAAAAF4o/BAJo-KdA0CE/s400/hiroshima_and_nagasaki_victims_nuclear_bombing.jpg
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWhiroshima.jpg

A recent poem I wrote about this tragedy:

“Forever Shadows”
http://deepundergroundpoetry.com/images/uploads/poemimages/89909.jpg
I’m haunted,    
not consumed.  
Often, I wonder    
in solemn silence  
about the scorch marks.  
Certainly human,  
where they girls or boys  
playing in schoolyards,  
men or women in  
the prime of life  
or in    
the twilight of their years,  
vagrant or respectable?  
 
Despite the siren-warning,  
a single plane high overhead  
probably meant nothing, for  
they had seen many more,  
it had been a long war.  
 
Then vibration,  
a sudden tremor,  
a million suns ignited.  
And in a flash,  
a fiery-tempest-storm  
left them    
vaporized,  
shadows    
forever.

Brilliant competition Strider, I visited Nagasaki on a student foreign exchange trip a few years ago, and what I saw at the memorial was something special. The Japanese people I encountered spoke perfect English to me and welcomed me. There I was introduced to the "Nagasaki foundation for the promotion of Peace" they used the devastation to their homeland from WWII as an example of forgiveness.

I will be back for your competiton, Strider.

Incinerated


I, and my child,
will not be here
tomorrow.

Tomorrow
will never arrive
for us.

Not for our families.
Not for our people.

Dawn will not rise
tomorrow is a lie.
Even dead survivors
will stumble and fall
in the dead streets.

There’s no future for us
our proud Japanese city
our cherished home
heart of my people
Hiroshima.

On this city of love
and normal daily living
on all of our heads
innocent babies and kids

will drop from the sky
the bomb of insanity
atomic torture fire
horror pain screams.

Judged and condemned
the worst way to die
mass incineration
I, and my child’s extinction.

In one horrifying
breath of fiery oblivion
my city -- the people I love
our remarkable history
will burn into the ground.

The result of our passing
will be called Peace.
Peace times.

Please.
Please do not forget
I, and my loving child.

While ever we exist
within your heart
inside your memory

We live.
We live.


© Carlene Grimshaw 2013
February 9, 2013

As if the weight was not enough
And you sown what you can't control
The father was bitter, and he demands the end
Here and now the tables will turn around

You and I delivered terror never seen
No rain will wash away what can't be forgiven
Can you learn to reap the mistakes you've made
Blood on skin is the price we all pay

The Nagasaki Foundation for the Promotion of Peace

In a not so distant era
when an Emperor reigned supreme.
The Imperialist Army of Japan
wrought destruction
And sought fresh land to claim.
An equal in warfare
And a Pacific battleground.
Did two Armies collide,
two worlds to mine.
A war, utterly relentless.
Without end in sight
A General.
The master of life and of death.
Made the call of death.
The bombs fell
And Japan was shattered
Delivered the final blow

Many years later
I stand before ground zero
mixed emotions stir within
the pot that is my heart.
As the Japanese winds sullen speak
of a once broken people,
now stronger than ever before.
The Manhatten Project spelled death
to Nagasaki and Hiroshima,
that the Atom bomb did fall.
A nuclear devastation
infecting generations to come.
That generation infected
of nuclear disease.
Stand before me now
with only compassion
and a welcoming heart.

For they felt no need of vengeance
as they knew to rise above.
And set an example to all who will hear
Their far cry from anger.
For they sing to the memories banished
and strive only for friendship to all
and who better to lead the world to peace
than a people who have known the greatest pain?
Hear their message
As they have the only right
to truly speak.
The Nagasaki Foundation for the Promotion of Peace
rings forever true.
And will resonate within you.

INTRODUCTION: I am a MANHATTAN PROJECT reader.  The Manhattan Project resulted in the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
This project done all over the US in Universities and of course, Los Alamos, involved some very well known people like Oppenheimer and some unknowns who died..."tickling the tiger's tail".
Louis Slotin was a brilliant young Physicist from Winnipeg who was given special status as a Canadian to come and work on the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos.  He made a bad mistake and died a horrible death from RADIATION POISONING.  His body was put into a LEAD coffin and returned to Winnipeg for burial.

The poem is written as Oppenheimer would have written it.

**************************************************************

THE GHOST OF LOUIS SLOTIN

Far into the horizon – there goes the mushroom cloud

What might have been a peaceful settlement did not work out

Sucked on his cigarette and cursed the day he was born

Then flicked the butt away and looked at the horizon once more

Walked slowly into the woods – back into the secret physics lab

This is where it all began – this is where they tickled the dragon’s tail

Wished it never happened

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Slotin

Strider.....I hope this poem is acceptable.
If not, I will withdraw it.

THE UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES OF NUCLEAR WAR

The world is floating in radioactive debris

The stars above are dripping blood

We have reached the nuclear war

That Oppenheimer warned us about

There is no shelter from this crime

The lead bunkers are filled with the barely living

We are puking our guts out, feverish, delirious

We throw out the dead and let the children in

The food and water have been used all up

The biohazard workers are all suited up

They are carrying syringes that look like vaccine

They inject the sickest and take them away

Finally acknowledging the need for euthanasia

The Japanese have come to help us

They know so much about radiation sickness

They are handing out calming drugs

The ones that used to land people in jail

Suddenly the DEA realizes that self-medication

Is the only way to keep the hordes of people in line

Smoking weed is no longer a crime, neither are the others

Too much pain cannot be dealt with the pettiness they had

So the folks in this overcrowded stinking bunker

Are taking pills like there is no tomorrow

Meanwhile the sirens are on constantly

Ringing for people to take cover

There is no hope or maybe there is

Many will die, the rich have fled

To their private underground palaces

They do not have to be with the proletarian masses

The UN is no more, it was a worthless venture

The bomb could not discern who was who

So all races and religions and creeds are together

It took a nuclear bomb to get us in this room.

http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7114/258/1600/414907/30.jpg


Proud to be Human

I s'pose the long and short of it
is that the mentality of 'whatever it takes'
still lives with us

everything about this bothers me
and especially the fact
that some of the most intelligent minds
of the time, made this happen

that kind of says it all.  

Be back soon with a winner...peace through poetry!

Strider

Fellow Poets,

Thanks for entering this competition and writing about this horrific event.  

I liked them like this:

1) Evan
2) in2uitiv (Carlene)
3) Kitty

Thanks to all the others...all worthy in their own write!

Strider

Thank you Strider, and congratulations to all who took part, this was a competition for the books.

awesome poetry, thank you