My husband remembers being terrified of nuclear war when he was a lad. It was a very tangible fear when we were young. I joined CND and marched with Bruce Kent, youthfully adamant that nukes should be destroyed and peace would come.
There are plenty more things that scare me as an adult, mostly dressed up as old guys with power. I wrote the following poem in response to a submission call. It wasn’t successful (and I could see why when I saw the resulting anthology ) but I still kind of like it and am still tweaking it.
I’ve been sharing a ‘protest’ poem each week, for the last few, on Bluesky and although this isn’t exactly one, it could be. See what you think. Plenty of word wrangling still to go I suspect…
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Don’t worry, I won’t be sending a poem a day! I’m establishing this section as part of my publication and will post less often when that’s done. Thank you for your forbearance.
Apocalypse Now
When I was young
the fear of mushroom clouds
was real
old men pushing buttons
ending it all
and then the Sunday School
doom merchants
fed me Revelations
of fire and horsemen
the ‘earth laid bare’
I thought that wars
might end us
the human race
destroying each other
the earth
rubbled with us
And the disaster movie makers
had their say
with meteors
wiping us out
destroying everything
Finally
I thought we might live
to see the sun
grow large
a red giant
desiccating our world
though now I’m not sure
we’ll make it that far
Disaster wears a human face
as we melt the Doomsday ice
and set the world on fire
our blue green gem
destroyed by greed.