Two Poems by Victoria Barnes

A Cosmic Dirty Story

—from the New York Times, 9 August 1945

 

From an open door in the sky,

the threshold of a new industrial art.

To the earth, an explosion of red:

the new and terrifying weapon.

In the morning newspaper, images arrive:

an imagination-sweeping experiment.

As we read the story, we learn—

The great bomb … harnesses the power of the universe to destroy the enemy by concussion, blast and fire.

With the fire, we consider our victory:

eminent scientists gathered, frankly fearful to witness the results of the invention, which might turn out to be either the salvation or the Frankenstein’s monster of the world.

In the glory of it all, the flash was pure—

an element of elation in the realization that we had perfected this devastating weapon.

Yet in our blindness an ocean apart, we see no blood.

What has been done … is the greatest achievement of organized science in history.

In reading more, we smell no cinders.

Practically all living things, human and animal, were literally seared to death.

In listening for imagined voices, we hear no calls.

We are more prepared to obliterate more rapidly and completely.

In turning away, we relish no victory.

The cruel sight resulting from the attack is so impressive that one cannot distinguish between men and women killed by the fire. The corpses were too numerous to be counted.

In knowing now, we reject our place:

What is this terrible new weapon, which the War Department also calls the ‘Cosmic Bomb’?

Coda:

In knowing now, we reject our place:

How will these righteous-thinking American people feel about the way their war leaders are perpetuating this crime against man and God?

 

 

Liberty Island

 

Give me your cliff
your cloud
your dreamy vision
of birds and fog
and flying

in the whir and whirl

of industry and asphalt
and commuters
in sooty rain—

of mothers and babies
and withered neglect
in malaise maligned—

with searing tears
I lift my lamp
but shut
the golden door.

 


Victoria Barnes has studied mythology, creative nonfiction, poetry, bookbinding, metaphoric thinking, and a bunch of other seemingly unrelated mishmash. She did not take math past high school, an accomplishment given her too many college degrees. She endeavors in taking photos and writing poetry. Currently she is writing a cycle of poems imagining Amelia Earhart’s thoughts on each airborne leg of her last flight and studying the skies in her travels, especially in the Southwest U.S.

Photo credit: Daniel Horacio Agostini via a Creative Commons license.


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Trophies and Ribbons

By Victoria Barnes

 

On a late November morning
toddlers and children drag
their parents’ silky purses
stuffed with glossy trophies and ribbons
to the sewing room.

They embroider golden
monograms,
add coats-of-arms in crewel,
tie silver coins
that dangle from purse seams.

Their parents nod.

By the rose evening
the children sing quietly
of imaginary gardens with lush fruit
and canary gingko trees,
their chores complete.

Suddenly a flash: electrified air
shatters their dreamy songs
and the children scuffle into
a protective circle
without armor or weapons,
holding hands, facing outward,
singing in fear.

Silver coins drop, tinkling.
Monograms sparkle and spark
to ash as the children drop
the purses, scattering
trophies across rocky asphalt,
their parents’ folly exposed
by the flaming wrath of decency.

 


Victoria Barnes is a diehard native Californian who has chopped lettuce, taught creative writing, owned a toy store, and specialized in Montessori education to earn a living. Her Ph.D. is in mythological studies and depth psychology, with research focusing on Rainer Maria Rilke’s Duino Elegies. Her home is in the redwoods of northernmost California where she writes poems and takes photographs. She sneaks out from behind the insulating Redwood Curtain to spend time with family in Philadelphia and Boulder, Colorado, as frequently as possible. Enjoy more of her work here.

Photo credit: Kit-Bacon Gressitt via a Creative Commons license.