[stylist] Sonnet - "Hiroshima" - Finalish Draft

[William L Houts]

Thanks, Jackie Lee.  Your commentary makes my day, as always.


--Bill





On 8/15/2015 9:29 AM, Jackie Williams via stylist wrote:
> Bill,
> I think this a really good sonnet, and poem, no matter the form
> I like it when sonnets grapple with ugly subjects rather than always love,
> spring, or roses.
> You have captured the horror, and the scene behind the reasons why.
>
> Jackie Lee
>
> Time is the school in which we learn.
> Time is the fire in which we burn.
> Delmore Schwartz	
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of William L
> Houts via stylist
> Sent: Friday, August 14, 2015 10:28 AM
> To: Writer's Division Mailing List
> Cc: William L Houts
> Subject: [stylist] Sonnet - "Hiroshima" - Finalish Draft
>
>
>
> Hey Friends,
>
> I wrote this some time ago, but as we've just passed the 70th
> anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, I thought I'd post it for wits and
> giggles.  I don't think it's a very good sonnet, really, though it might
> be an adequate poem and deserves to live on in my poetry folder, where I
> can perform intermittent operations on it, preferably without
> anesthesia.  I did something weirdass with the present tense for some
> reason; probably to lend the poem a more immediate feeling, but it's
> been so long that I shrink from speculating any further on that score.
>
>
> --Bill
>
>
> ---
>
> Hiroshima
>
> No enemies were bombed, no tanks or planes:
>
> just people walking dogs or bringing home
>
> their fish and rice from market stalls while chains
>
> of splitting atoms high above become
>
> a lightning hellish holocaust which rains
>
> a nightmare poison down, a billion wraths.
>
> Today, the children fold their paper cranes
>
> and pray to save the world from psychopaths.
>
> But that's a country with an ancient mind,
>
> where history is taught and facts retained.
>
> America, I fear, is not that kind
>
> Our virgin state, when lost, is e'er regained.
>
> To learn and leave the past?We're not inclined:
>
> our nation's got a faint, forgetful mind!
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>


-- 


"Oh, Sophie!  Whyfore have you eated all de cheeldren?"