Nuclear Winter: Poetry of the Apocalypse
The Unthinkable
NUCLEAR WINTER is an attempt to think about the unthinkable consequences of a full-blown, planetary nuclear war. What are the thoughts and lives of those who survive the initial devastation in a world where the cold of winter is hot with radiation and even first snowfalls are ashen grey?
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Nuclear Winter presents the viewpoints of individual nuclear holocaust victims, some adult, some children, in different locations and circumstances, who have survived the first shock of a major nuclear war. The poems are arranged in the order I wrote them between October and December 1985. They reveal a world in the grip of nuclear winter where snow and ice, changed weather patterns and grey clouded skies are made worse by the radioactive refuse of a planetary nuclear battleground.
My purpose is to alert the reader to the danger of a major nuclear war. I do not believe such a war is likely today, but it is more likely than it was ten or twenty years ago and if something is not done to prevent it, such a war will grow increasingly possible. Read the poems, see the consequences and avert the war.
(February 1986)
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T.E. Lawrence wrote that the Arab revolt in the desert was a fight for individual freedom in which morality and the rights of the Arab nation were consumed in the quest for victory. Now, nearly three-quarters of a century later, another fight for Arab freedom from outside interference unfolds the specter of an even more potentially cataclysmic confrontation using the most sinister weapon of the First World War - poison gas - along with the ultimate invention of military destruction, the nuclear bomb. Have we come back to the Garden of Eden to demonstrate that we can now throw ourselves out?
The emergence of a less bipolar world has not led to the lessening of the threat of nuclear war. Every state capable of forging a nuclear weapon awaits only its own fevered scenario for its use, an attack always couched in defensive terms and consistently at the expense of innocent civilians and, if enough payers can be found, the destruction of humanity.
There are no poems from the desert because the margin of tolerance for stupidity is too narrow to encompass survivors of a nuclear battlefield. The desert is not so forgiving.
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“I am thankful for the help and encouragement I received in the publication of this book, from Dick and Ginny Dromgoole, Milton and Martha Bell, and especially from my wife, Lindy.”
— Dan Mings
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“These haunting passages by S. Daniel Mings starkly depict the horror of the nuclear catastrophe humans have built for themselves. These disturbing images are reality hopefully never realized.”
— Richard Turco, co-author TAPPS report on nuclear winter
“Dr. Mings’s message is without ambiguity.”
— Bill Moyers, journalist
Accident
Someone said it was an accident,
some storage depot fusion bomb
set off the counter-strike
we counter-striked against.
I don’t know what caused the war,
only that it had to come
with so many careful introductions already made.
Mankind, the Bomb, Bomb, Mankind;
a few minutes of mutual illumination
to make it all clear,
and then the dark, cold and wind
in which to regret.
—a man
Adirondack Mountains
North America
Spring
I saw a pink flower blossom in the dust by the square
where the tall buildings used to be.
I saw a green weed sprout near where the water seeps
by the collapsed car tunnel.
Perhaps this long, desolate winter is breaking.
I detected no critical roentgen levels after the last ash fall.
—a girl
The Alps
Europe
The Nuclear Family
I dine with my family every day.
We sit at the concrete picnic table by the stone wall in the garden.
They are facing me and I come to join them;
I hardly notice they are their own shadows against the wall.
—a man
Hokkaido Island
Asia
My child is burned ...
My child is burned.
I tried to shield against the blast heat,
but it was too late.
—a woman
Rhodope Mountains
Europe
Used to Be
There used to be trees and grass and blue sky
if you went far enough from the city
before the bomb changed all that
things used to be pretty.
Now they’re not. The trees
and flowers and growing things
outside the bubble dome
didn’t do well. They sort of died.
People have begun to take on
the same ashen pallor as the
land and sky. People seem subdued
now that the only green is hydroponic algae.
But I think they are a beautiful light green.
—a woman
Outback
Australia
The Wind Howls
I used to love listening to the wind howl
from the Arctic to Texas and past my window.
Blue Northers we called them
and the biting cold was a respite
from the memory of summer heat.
Now I cannot remember summer heat
or green growing things out in the open.
Blue Northers we call them still
and the biting cold has no respite.
For the wind that howls past my window month after month
blows from the south.
—a woman
Texas Hill Country
North America
Bunk
I stare at the bunk above me.
She is asleep there;
Her breathing has finally slowed.
Our first night down here
in the shelter and all the
systems are working O.K.
Air, water, food and books are still available
but I wonder if civilization is over.
Is this shelter all that’s left?
In the end, was Henry Ford right?
Is the end of history above me?
Is history bunk?
—a man
Ohio Valley
North America
Dear Santa
Dear Santa, please hurry here.
Our daughter Marie is only four
but her logic is as clear
as midnight broken by the searing light
of the bomb blast.
She's afraid you aren't coming
because the shelter has no chimney,
only an airvent to filter out death.
She smiled a little when we told her
she'd join you in heaven.
But the morphine is almost gone and
she won't be able to smile much longer.
—a woman
Puget Sound
North America
Gulls
The sea stinks most peculiar
since the wartime began.
Maybe the plankton died
and the chain reaction spread.
Our beach is ankle deep in
fishy skeletons. At least the gulls got a feast
before they skimmed the empty waters and flew away.
Now the fish, the sea and the gulls exist
only on the video cassettes of
old movies and eco-hysteria films.
—a man
Sumatra
Asia
It’s Them
Have you heard it?
Late at night outside the big blast door,
the howls still come through somehow,
Maybe they’re just dogs gone hungry too long
or perhaps wolves, but no.
We know what makes that noise.
It’s them. Those that died outside.
Why do they blame us for living?
My parents tell me it’s only the storm wind,
but I hear the noises call me to come out.
Maybe tonight, when everyone is asleep,
I’ll creep up the tunnel and open the big blast door.
—a girl
Rocky Mountains
North America
Cool Water
I must throw myself into cool water
to ease the pain of my burns.
I didn’t have them at first;
I thought I was O.K.
Now I wish I could die quick
and end the agony to come.
Ahhh - who did this to me?
Why wasn’t I more careful?
Why didn’t I stop them from their stupid war?
There is no God! Oh God, please help me!
Someone carry me outside
where it is cold
and I can sleep.
—a man
Black Forest
Europe
Mouse
Each night the mouse creeps across
the shelter floor and watches us.
He’s not hungry or cold because
he can get into the grain storage compartment.
We can’t.
What is the gestation period for mice?
If he has a mate they will inherit the entire shelter complex
unless I kill him tonight.
Why bother? We are dead in
a few days and no one else will come
after we are gone.
If he’s alone then he’ll die alone too.
But what if the radiation mutates
his heirs and they realize what
we have done?
I am too ashamed to let any other species
know how we have failed our stewardship.
—a man
Kuban Steppe
Europe
Old People Are Selfish
Old people are selfish
they paw feebly at the food packets with grey inflamed fingers.
Old people are selfish
why must we share precious food with mumblers?
Old people are selfish
everybody over thirty should just be stuck outside to die.
—a young man
New Jersey Pine Barrens
North America
Norwegian Wood
Once in a 1960’s June,
we hummed and changed a Beatles tune.
Now January frosts and freezes every month.
And Norwegian wood is Birnam come to Dunsinane.
I think I see them falling gently now,
another silver ashfall in the cold moonlight.
—a woman
Scottish Highlands
British Isles
Slug-a-bed
Today I will feel no pain
of body or mind
because I’m not going to open my eyes
or get out of bed.
I’m the oldest one left in the shelter.
Besides, it’s too cold to move,
outside of my warm blankets.
There are enough for everyone now
that the grown-ups are gone.
I’m the oldest one left in the shelter.
—a boy
Andes Mountains
South America
Tenochtitlan is Radioactive
Ehecatl sweeps along the night streets.
No shutters slap shut to avoid him,
no courageous youth waits for him
at the crossroads on the traveler’s bench
under the stars.
He has turned cold and poisonous
despite our blood sacrifice
of an entire planet.
Five billion hearts
held aloft pounding in the silence
And we are no more.
—a man
Sierra Madre Occidental
North America