Aftermath
Hiroshima, a city that had stood for 400 years, was razed to the ground by the force of the bomb, which killed up to 140000 people and left a legacy of sickness for many years to come. Red oleanders blossomed in the city the year after the bomb, but many children of survivors were born deformed. Two years afterwards there was a rise in leukemias; ten years afterwards the incidence of cancers rose.
And there were questions, a whole thicket of questions. US president Harry Truman is said to have authorised bombing the Japanese rather than Europeans because their foreignness made it more acceptable to the American public. Whether that was true or not, he believed to the end of his days that by dropping the bomb he had cut short the war and prevented many more lives being lost.
That has been the subject of much debate over the years, particularly given that the US knew Japan had informally sought help from Russia in negotiating peace.
But ordinary individuals also had questions to ask themselves - was it right to work in factories creating nuclear weapons, even if you did live in a blighted working town in the north of England? to send soldiers, unknowing, to take part in nuclear tests, leaving their health destroyed? Would the world ever recover from a nuclear war?
John S Savage
5 Haiku
How beautiful are
the shadows dancing on walls
-- hatred put them there.
Tears over the stones,
mothers and babies imprint
-- happy one per cent
Oh, the rich man dreams
while the poor man screams
about radioactive beams
The men in their suits
itch to push the peace button
-- they love mushroom soup
Tears held in old hands
as new faces tick same boxes
-- the future whimpers
Alun Robert
The Stronger
she stands alone numb
where cherry blossom would snow
where absent friends would play
shout
laugh
jump
where her kindergarten rose high
full of peace
full of promise
in life before hell happened
to crumble it to rubble
as stillness surrounds her
in wake of a new morning
no trucks
no trains
not any militia in sight
so quiet apart from guttural
the growling
the hissing
apart from those crying
prostate on the ground
the orphan of hope
not today
not tomorrow
though after the mourning
she will return
the stronger
The Poisonous Mushroom
Drafted into the military
like all my street gang.
Survived through boot camp
though it tested my strength.
Consigned to an active unit
a long way from home to
live in a tin hut with
over thirty new pals.
Were bussed into desert.
Sun shining, no cloud above.
Wore our combats, regular boots
put on helmets, carried rifles then
assigned to tight trenches
told to keep our heads down,
hand cover our ears cause
the noise would be loud.
Deafening! Painful.
The light and the wave.
Felt the ground move
like a Frisco earthquake.
Crawled out of the trenches
covered in a blown dust.
Saw the mushroom of power
not knowing what they done.
They tested us all over.
We crackled from crud so
they brushed off our uniforms,
dusty boots and the rest.
Showered back at camp.
Had a few cold beers.
Were told to say nothing
for this was hush-hush.
Was delisted soon after.
Went home to the folks.
Did not hold reunions until
pals fell from the plague.
More and more went down.
Soon it was my turn with
Uncle Sam compensating
my widow, my kids.
Gave my life for the country
like all my street gang
in the name of research
in hands of the rich while
the vulnerable can be burned,
their land poisoned from
those possessing power to
control the mushroom.
Christmas Island 1957
on Kiritimati
aka Christmas Island
middle Pacific
tropical atoll
far from mainland
far out of sight
nuclear testing
cold war hot
conscripts sat
upon beach sand
National Service
November ’57
naked torsos
khaki shorts
closed their eyes
faced the sea
as if by magic
a mushroom rose
flash of light
scorching heat
spat the blast
upon their backs
bones appeared
like x-ray vision
fed toxic water
desalinated
made them sick
doing their duty
incurred bomb trauma
time and time again
as guinea pigs
nuclear radiation
no military medals
no battle honours
victims of peace
clandestine war
taken too early
from the curse
wanton exposure
on Kiritimati
ANNE DUNFORD
Image by Tom Staziker from Pixabay
Polar Opposites
Barrow-in Furness, small Cumbrian town,
central to the production of a nuclear arsenal
capable of wiping out civilisation.
My birthplace, where I had
Walney Island with beaches to explore,
Sunday afternoon trips to the Lake District,
Furness abbey with a natural amphitheatre
perfect for sledging in winter.
Most parents worked in the shipyard,
Barrow’s major employer
‘nest of the dragon, pure evil’
or ‘a dream place to work?’ Polar opposites.
To a child, unaware of the dark truths behind
the names spawned at Vickers yard
names like Dreadnought,
Polaris spelled adventure.
Uncles, sent to Scotland to test work
on submarines begun in Barrow’s
yard had a job to be envied
until, as a teenager sporting Ban the Bomb
logos on my satchel, I became aware of
what was going on ‘in the yard.’
Long after I left Barrow, news
filtered through. I learnt of a new
monstrous building that towers
over the town, hiding Trident
more deadly than any minotaur. This
is real, not a problem to be resolved
by a modern day Theseus. Now, I’m
hundreds of miles from Barrow
yet here, on a clear day,
from the top of Cairnsmore, I see
that monster’s lair dominate, haunt.
joe williams
Cold
The space race was never enough.
The war could not be won
by Laika, or Yuri, or Neil.
So Spassky and Fischer
were sent to the front line,
reluctant troops in Reykjavik,
playing to save the world.
The Soviet’s revenge
was on the basketball court,
an arena as unlikely
as a miracle on ice.
Americans never
marched in Moscow,
nor Russians in LA.
Better a boycott
than a Bay of Pigs,
a button pushed,
The Bomb.
Was the last blow laid
on the cinema screen,
when Rocky put down Drago?
A fitting end in fiction
to a war that wasn’t real.
TOM HUBBARD
Thrie Etudes i the Key o Green
(Chernobyl April/May 1986)
1
'Gin we cuidna deal wi this
How could we deal wi thon?'
An ingan dome is kittled bi the sun's licht.
As anither day, an ikon fir ti kiss,
The shots ti expeck, though the horseman gallopt on,
Dostoyevsky thocht that glow his final sicht.
2
The warld gone grey, aa grey, save the bleckened twist
o the leevin wha lang ti dee
They're the hinmaist ribble stasht on history's cairn.
Gin that's no yit, en eenou cuid be missed
Spring eichtie-sax has the horror we canna see,
That blichts the gress owre the corp o cancered bairn.
3
Unlock oor brain-jyle wi the key o green!
The rhythims of the sap an o the bluid,
An verdant mairrit ti vermilion.
Or whit sall gladden oor een
As we byde here manacled
Whan the domes o daith explode in unison?
(Notes: lines 1-2 an American doctor speakin i the Kremlin efter Chernobyl
line 15 the East German scriever Rudolf Bahro has advocatit a synthesis o ecologie an socialism.)
LICHTS
(Fir the weemen at Greenham Common)
Thon glow o lamps athort the muckle brig
That jynes twa continents, could indicate
The terget fir a bomb, that nou micht lig
Silent, but gleg fir yuise some future date.
Ay, an it waits ahent some baurbed wire fence
Whase ugsome length fae caunles is revealed
By queans and carlines singing o their sense
O daungers that fae maist fowk are concealed.
Tho camera lichts record some scenes o threat -
Lichts whaur the storm troops chairge - or dinna yet -
Lichts whaur a macho power itself asserts
Thir lichts maun brichten mair nor they dae now
Or greater lichts sall at the last ensue
Owre late ti show the daurkness o oor herts.
CHRIS TAIT
An alien x-ray
Unstable dictators
Juggle bombs in a circus
Foreboding horror
A post apocalypse status
Balancing terror
A world of just three blind mice
The cusp of Armageddon
A nuclear cafe
A voodoo garden
The earth like an ashtray
Chemist’s crimes of arson
An alien x-ray
Punch and Judy threaten
Both sides of the iron curtain
Toys are deadly weapons
Politicians must bargain
Or we combust to phantoms
Explode on spits of venom
GEORGE COLKITTO
Nuclear Impact Assessment
always opposing
what did they expect
kisses
determine key differences
to be achieved
independent thought - rubble
chanting slogans - screams and silence
people moaning - people moaning
sort and prioritise
spread sheets will assist in charting success
how far did body parts scatter
how large the craters
make decisions using the results
focus groups may be useful
remind who to hate
ensure there are bigger bombs
smarter death more destruction
more shock more awe
in the military
there is deep experience
in planning change
Nuclear Warning
my great uncle barely knew
nuclear war
he died before the Cuban crisis
I see him teach me cards
how to link numbers
I see him smile
we never discussed how
to frazzle a million people
we never wondered if the bomb
had secured western democracy
he laughed and lifted me
he gave me love
tomorrow when the bomb lands
unscrew the kitchen door
lay it over the table
we have four minutes
to create a shelter
kiss your sister
goodbye
Burial Rites
I thought it given
Hiroshima and Nagasaki
seen as the stench of old
I though we knew
there are no winners in destruction
would not tip into the mire
I thought our sense
would not bring us from the heights
down to the pains of ignorance
I see rage spread
seeping from our scourging
whipped in by lesser men
I feel the blindness
seeking for the night
cocooned in self
I have fears
the dragon’s teeth are sown
armies will fight to death
I carve a stone
in this wilderness
HERE MADMEN LIE
earth’s heart stuff laid bare (Ted Hughes – Bridestones)
beating out a drum roll of war, time for the troops to gather on the deserts, to march the stone dry roads, prepare for earthquake and hurricane, for the tempest bringing Caliban and monsters of our imagining, now we rewrite all our warnings, tear down every sign-post, we will not welcome raven or dove, for this battle was lost before we realised we were the enemy, so we will gather at our funeral parade girded with past honours of destruction, pinned to our chest the long dead, wearing the coats of the fallen, some will head to the planets, take flight in the hope of new worlds, will look down on earth’s heart stuff laid bare, our blue planet turning, turning weaker and dying
JANET CRAWFORD
When Rainbow Coloured Caps Spell Hope
Like a primary-coloured train
snaking along the tracks
you walk in formation
bright caps and bags denoting your youth
you move in trusting uniformity
following one after another
growing quieter with each exhibit viewed
through rooms weighed down with sorrow
you mix with tourists clutching cameras
tightly to heavy chests
together we grow to understand the dawn
of a new time in humanity
as the last exhibits thin enough to move
we step out into sunlit spaces
with eyes blinking softly, only in part
due to the watery reflections thrown skywards
from the monuments of glass, steel and stone
held reverentially within the Peace Park
Amidst the city’s cacophony of noise
even the buses passing by, seem subdued
quieting in respect on a journey taken daily
by new eyes, keen to understand
We stand entranced by the single Lotus flower
floating boldly to remind us that nature renews
even where man has reduced all to atoms
we see hope rising from Hiroshima’s pain
Bowing our heads again
still silent, we leave of choice
knowing that tens of thousands
did not get the chance
to hold hope in adulthood.
Photo by Janet Crawford
MAIRGHREAD McLUNDIE
平和の時計塔
Heiwa no tokei-tō
Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park
eight fifteen a.m.
droplets
of sound
fall
tremble
oscillate
over
paths
radiate
through
trees
harmonise
cancelling
chatter
amplifying
silence
reverberating
Peter A
After
After words
their last have
spoken and
from here gone
Afterwards
it is said
cockroaches
will make the
earth their own
Do you see
already
some may be
working to
inherit
behind the
scenes planning
preparing
strategies
awaiting
the endgame
from which all
cockroach-types
are due to
benefit
after the black
rainfall/after
the slaughter of
words and laughter
After
ASHBY McGOWAN
Afterwards
And yes, afterwards
Perhaps there shall be what the humans once called, 'Weeds'
Yet pretty in the ruins
Green urgent shoots, they do not know they were once called, 'Ugly'
There may one day be trees
All over the World, surviving
Covering the scars. Giving out oxygen for what remains.
So much lives on through the radiation
Yet still, many species have been cruelly mutated
But lichens? Yes, beautiful lichens will survive,
Afterwards
The United States of America, Lecanora, The United Kingdom, Lepraria, Israel, Xanthoria, Russia, Parmelia, France, Physcia, China, Hypogymnia
The unquestioning masses are silent now for ever. No longer worried by doubts.
The believers are in their heaven - if it exists
And the Politicians have fought their war to the best of their abilities
But, the cost
HARRISON HICKMAN
Ground
Dark and burnt.
Before it was the opposite.
England’s green and pleasant land
Possible to stand at the end of the road
And gaze out upon the fields.
Everything is scorched now.
The ground always tells stories.
This ground tells tales of
What is now
And what once was.
VICKY ALLEN
Hopeful Fools
The day came
when we tumbled blinking into the light
like fools, revealed
like fools who’d forgotten their own address
like prodigals peeing in their own stairwells,
trashing their own homes.
And blinking in that bright relentless light,
we stopped, unsteady and raw,
broken dusty feet
bleeding our shame and dereliction, and
we turned our faces to the forgiving, blessed sun
and - hopeful fools - we learned a new way to live.
ANNE DUNFORD
Remembering
How many white poppies
how many paper cranes
how many posters
how many marches
will it take
to remember the year - 1945
to remember the month - August
to remember the dates - 6th & 9th?
‘Little Boy’ and ‘Fat Man’
names that bely the horror,
carnage, sheer inhumanity
of destruction that killed and
maimed hundreds of thousands.
However many white poppies
however many paper cranes,
however many posters
however many marches
can there ever be enough?
We should never give up hope,
never stop remembering so
one day maybe all peoples will say
No! No more to nuclear war.
Stephanie Green
Prayer for Peace
(On the 75th Anniversary of Hiroshima’s Atomic Bomb, 8.15am, 6th August, 1945).
Fall silent at 8.15 for a minute.
What can we do except fight darkness with light:
candle-lit lanterns,
floating in their thousands,
gold flickers of hope on the dark flowing river.