Fire Up That Fine Cigar Damn You!

Printing-off a copy of Celebration, a poem recently submitted by Joan Cairns for the poetry twentyten project, I rediscovered a poem of my own which had been written some years ago.

Fire Up That Fine Cigar Damn You! was composed immediately after close reading of a book* by John Hersey. The poem has now resurfaced because it happened to be on the reverse of the sheet of paper on which Celebration had been printed.


Fire Up That Fine Cigar Damn You!

Lively: Bright:...above the solitary cloud...in rumbling silence...
in the space of blue heaven...soon to be whiter than white...soon to be awhirl with a wild fantastic fairground ride...with flying horses...
and handcarts...
and babies...
and the sounds of...running...screaming...children... tearful in clouds of swirling dust...and the day growing dark... a premature twilight...

fire up that fine cigar damn you!

spirited winds fuelled the burning air...
showers of cinders and all the trees bare
~ ~ ~
we plunged into the delta rivers
to escape the heat
the whirlwinds
the melting roads
the flesh burns
the flash burns
and the melting skin slipping off
our slimy bodies...
~ ~ ~
by the end of the second week
the flowers
will be thriving
as never before...

the spanish bayonet
the goosefoot
and the morning glory...
~ ~ ~
I look into your liquefied eyes
and soothe your radiation fevers
and your nervous shocks...
~ ~ ~
your miscarriage
will grow rapidly

when the lush grass
bolts in the dust.

______
gw2010

*Hiroshima by John Hersey
(Penguin Classics).
'cigarosaurus' picture
courtesy of 'free clipartof'