“life in the dead zone”
After Leonard Bird who stood up
Obey all commands issued
especially those that do not make
any sense:
“Shortly after the implosion, you will
stand up and face ground zero. You will
observe the effects of the fireball and
its subsequent mushroom. Approximately
two hours later, you will mount an assault
on ground zero—“
Welcome to Yucca Flats, welcome to first
hand viewing Shot Hood.
“Stand assured! You will be at no risk.
None whatsoever if you follow our
instructions.”
“Radioactive dust poses no immediate danger.
Sweepers with brooms will be employed to
remove any dust that remains after the test.
Showers will be available to wash excess dirt
and debris away, as will new uniforms to replace
your old soiled ones.”
It is only later that the danger will become
apparent, that the risk factor will increase.
“Don your gas masks; check your straps.
Check your buddy’s straps. Fall to one knee.
Cover your eyes. Pull your field jacket over
your head and over you face. Cross your arms
on your knee. Bury your face in your crossed arms.”
You are Marines. You are volunteers;
Volunteers, volunteered, involuntarily.
“Two minutes until zero hour. Two minutes!
Assume the final position. Cover your faces.
Block out all light. Cross your arms on your
knee. Bury your covered face in your crossed
arms. Repeat! Block out all light!”
Think about this:
“March toward ground zero!”
And what good these safety measures will do:
“All right, Marines. Dust yourself off.
Thoroughly. Repeat. Thoroughly!”
The real final position taken much later on,
once the defenses are completely broken
down and the cancer, the enemy is fully established.
“It is always snowing when I read the Russians”
after a line by Sean Thomas Dougherty
& my head is packed with ice,
my eyes are frozen coals made
harder by the drop forge of burning,
the last white light of heat’s evisceration
stolen from bodies wrapped in fur.
I am reading the Russians
by lamplight: Chekhov’s Country
Doctor rides a pale horse, fights
a duel over lost love and is wounded
but doesn’t die, squanders money
on the tables, drinks last kopeks
meant for the family meal while
his children freeze for want of coal.
I am reading how they survived
Stalingrad, deliberately starved
and made more desperate
so they would fight that much
harder to protect what little
remained; for want of potatoes
they ate dirt.
I am reading the Russians
and how they tell of ice breaks
so forceful, soul loud they sounded
like thunder, like a thousand cannons
at the Front, all the unburied dead
rising to fight again; after two years
of holding off the Germans anything
is possible even retribution, even salvation.
I am reading the Russians
and listening to Prokofiev,
Alexander Nevsky and how
the peasants sang as they worked,
how they fought, listening to wordless
chanting of a Russian Easter Overture
suggesting after Death, Renewal and
I am listening to Shostakovich, Babi
Yar, Leningrad, those symphonies
that told another story of the Motherland,
the one of terror and murder and exile
to places from which no one ever returned,
the real stories, the ones the State denies
but the People know in their bones.
The Saturation Bombing of Saddam’s Army in Retreat During
First Gulf War Crusade as the Book of Revelation
after reading Quan Barry
All the precision hits, staged and televised on
CNN News and elsewhere for the world
to witness.
All the cities, towns, enclaves reduced to ruin
from above with a Biblical kind of Technological
wrath.
All the Kuwaiti oil fields on fire, belching noxious
black smoke, fouling the air, the beaches,
the desert.
All the putative Armies of Occupation bombed into submission,
concussed bodies left whole on the fields
of battle, undamaged on the outside, fucked
on the inside.
All the corpses made into shriveled effigies of men
trapped in their fire-ruined vehicles; memento mori
for conquering armies rebuffed, in full rout.
All those armies in retreat, on straight open roads in
wide open desert spaces, on raised berms, barely
moving targets without defenses or recourse.
And the man who ordered the wholesale annihilation by
saturation bombings and later, rescinded, after tens
of thousands died.
The Killing Fields as Robert Towne’s Screenplay for “Chinatown”
after reading Quan Barry’s Incontrovertibles
Seven million skulls planted on the sloping streets in
soft earth beneath cobblestone streets.
The skulls that sprout are fashioned into masks for
street mimes, performance artists, trick or
treating kids.
Each time a siren is heard, a new round of killings is
announced.
Hovering overhead, chopper blades localize the places where
blood has been shed and broadcasts it to networks,
police headquarters, the general’s palace.
The mastermind behind the most heinous of the ritual killings
sends disciples made totally suggestible by infusions
of drugs, sexual addiction and hypnotic commands,
to continue the killing
Blood of the victims is used to write DEATH TO PIGS
on walls, or to leave tell-tale prints to warn those
who follow the killers here, that the Future will be
determined by a new kind of Primal Law: Kill or Be
Killed, Eat or Be Eaten.
Stated fears of race wars, and political persecution, are just a
rationalization, an excuse to insure that the killing will
go on.
Witnessing the senseless murdering reveals that, Death is a release,
that what may be done to the next generation, the unprotected
by arms and man, will be much worse that what has been
done to the dead ones, and you will be powerless to prevent it.
There is no overthrowing the strongman, only Death will survive.
“It’s Chinatown, Jake.”
It’s the Killing Fields, folks
Cold War Entertainment: a triptych
On the foreground of three panels
a lady from the fifties rolls up her
skirt to reveal what is beneath:
shapely legs in silk stockings,
fetchingly flexed on high heels.
A refuge from a Beckett play
circus clown sprawls on a bare
panel, balancing a Shirley Temple
doll on his nose.
And a well-dressed-for-work-and-
play man, standing on his head, suit jacket
and tie folding over, white shirt neatly
tucked in, black socks and garters
exposed where the pants legs slide down.
All framed against a large-as-life backdrop/
photograph of the aftermath of A-bomb
on the cities in Japan.