Original Child Bomb: What We Talk About When We Talk About The Bomb (Part 2)

A section from "Poems of the Atomic Bomb" 

by Tōge Sankichi

This is part two of Original Child Bomb - an exploration of the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and it's legacy in the 21st century. Here in the US, history is a tricky thing. The past is seen as inconsequential when it doesn't serve our current aims and purposes. (But then, I would say this is true for just about any nation and corporation on earth...and many individuals...) The first part, about the annual peace vigil at Los Alamos and the Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty, is the previous post.

Toge Sankichi

The poems of  Tōge Sankichi bring the historical support or criticism of the bomb into sharp focus. These poems are a potent and living record: this is what happened on the ground. Under the noise from the arguments for and against, I keep looking at what happened to those people - real people, flesh and blood people - during and after the blast. This helps me focus on the present - right now, in many parts of the world, there are those living with the threat of imminent annihilation from missiles from the sky (US drone strikes), those that have lost family members and loved ones from incessant bombing campaigns, those that have lost their homes, their eyes, their legs, their hands... 

Here's a section from the book

Poems of the Atomic Bomb 
(Genbaku shishū)
by 
Tōge Sankichi:

activist, poet, and survivor of the atomic blast in Hiroshima.

Record of a Storehouse

That Day: In a field of lotus plants, all leaves burned into the shape of a horseshoe, the place: the second story of the army clothing warehouse. A concrete floor with dim light from a single tall latticed window. A layer of army-issue blankets spread on the floor; those who have fled lie here facing all directions. All are naked save for the fragments of underpants and work pants on their waists.

            Those who so fill the floor that there is nowhere left to step are nearly all younger schoolgirls who had left to take care of the evacuated houses. But the scars that cover their entire bodies from their faces on down, the mercurochrome, the clots of blood, the ointment, the bandages, transformed by filth, make them look like a group of old beggar women.

            Shaded by thick posts, the pails and buckets by the wall are full of dirt, and into these they pour excrement, and amid the foul, chest-piercing smell,

            "Help me daddy, help me!"

            "Water, hooray, we have water! Oh, I’m so happy!"

            "Fifty sen! Hey, here is fifty sen!"

            "Take it away that dead thing at my feet take it away!"

            The voices are high and thin and unceasing; the minds of some of the schoolgirls have already been torn apart; half of the girls have become corpses that no longer move, but there’s no one to take them away. Occasionally, a parent bound in air-raid clothing will enter looking for a daughter; flustered, he’ll look around for familiar features or for work pants of a particular pattern. When they know this is going on, the girls briefly cry out desperately for water and for help.

            "Water, sir! Draw some water for me!"

            Hairless, one eye in a spasm, her entire body swollen, a girl emerges partway out of the shadow of a post and holds up a crushed canteen, waves it in the air, and repeats her plea again and again and again. But the adults have heard that they are not to give water to the burn victims, and they pay no attention to these cries. So most of the girls get tired of calling and spitefully drop their voices, and that girl too finally collapses back into the shadows.

            The storehouse without light sends into the earth the echoes of the faraway city that continues to burn, and, its crazed voices wasting away and rising up, is swallowed by the darkness of the night.

(Translated by Karen Thornber)

*****

A PDF of the entire book can be found here.

(The book contains poems from the moment of the blast, through the aftermath, culminating in a peace march in Hiroshima in 1950, commemorating the 'death anniversary' during the American occupation, that was crushed by police)

Memorial for Toge Sankichi at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park

"...give back the human race..."


(Original Child Bomb is a mistranslation of the Japanese term for the atom bomb, genshi bakudan. Genshi, which means "atom," contains root characters which, when rendered individually, can possibly mean "original" and "child." There is a Thomas Merton poem and a documentary of the same name. It was supposed for years that this was the literal translation of "atom bomb" because the Japanese saw it as the first of its kind. As far as I can tell, Original Child Bomb was never used by the Japanese - and yet it seems to contain, in English - because of the strange and innocent distance that "child" and "original" seem to make from the horrors of the explosion and its aftermath - a more appropriately ominous and terrifying feel than "atom bomb." A dread thing inside a chrysalis, so to speak.)

Next:

A Short History of the Decision to Drop the First Two Nuclear Bombs

Original Child Bomb: What We Talk About When We Talk About The Bomb (Part 1)

Peace Vigil, Los Alamos, NM, August 6, 2015

We are coming up on the 72nd Anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (August 6th and 9th). Which got me to thinking about two years ago, on the 70th anniversary, when Michaela and I went to the annual Sackcloth and Ashes vigil in Los Alamos (where the original bomb was designed and made, and continues to be a major laboratory complex for nuclear and conventional weapons manufacture), protesting against the continual existence of the Los Alamos National Laboratory (and all other laboratories and factories that include the vast nuclear-industrial complex), keeping a nonviolent witness for those that had suffered from the bombings, and, most importantly, through that witness imagining the possibility of a universal nuclear weapons ban.   

           

There was a rally at Ashley Pond, a park that rests on the physical site where the original bomb was made, and then we walked up Trinity Drive, towards the laboratory entrance. Most wore burlap, some covered themselves with ashes. We sat for an hour on the sidewalk in silence before heading back to the pond. Many cars drove by. Some honked in support. Some honked and yelled in disgust or anger. Some - mostly the young - looked confused, having no idea why we were there.  

           

Most of the cars that drove by were probably driven by those employed or related to those employed in some capacity by the Department of Defense. They work at the laboratory. They make a good living. There is a lot of money in weapons research. The county that contains Los Alamos is one of the richest counties in the United States. The county that houses the Santa Clara Pueblo in the valley below is the second poorest county in the nation. It's clear where our priorities lie.

           

While sitting on the sidewalk, I began to think about how little I knew about the decision- making process over the dropping of that first nuclear bomb. I have, for the most part, focused on the consequences of the bomb - and the economic and environmental devastation left in the wake of the nuclear-industrial complex. Since that vigil two years ago, I've read about the history of the making of the first nuclear bomb and the factors that went into using it on Hiroshima and Nagasaki - and discovered how that history has had a direct influence on how the US views its nuclear arsenal today - and has helped shape conventional military strategy and thinking. I'll be posting some of that information in the next few posts.  

But first…

           

Hope?

A Global Treaty to Ban Nuclear Weapons

UN Treaty Negotiations, 2017

I want to start with a glimmer of hope. On July 7, 2017, a global treaty was approved to ban nuclear weapons. 122 nations in the UN endorsed this treaty (two thirds of the 192-member body). Within two years the treaty could have the 50-state ratifications it needs to become international law. To no one's surprise, all those nations who have nuclear weapons, and those that come under their protection or host weapons on their soil, boycotted the negotiations.

There was very little coverage of this event in the US media. So, here's a little more detail from a Guardian article:

“'It’s a prohibition in line with other prohibitions on weapons of mass destruction,' said Beatrice Fihn at the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons in Geneva. 'We banned biological weapons 45 years ago, we banned chemical weapons 25 years ago, and today we are banning nuclear weapons.' Within two years the treaty could have the 50-state ratifications that it needs to enter into international law, she said.

"Previous UN treaties have been effective even when key nations have failed to sign up to them. The US did not sign up to the landmines treaty, but has completely aligned its landmines policy to comply nonetheless. 'These kinds of treaties have an impact that forces countries to change their behavior. It is not going to happen fast, but it does affect them,' Fihn said. 'We have seen on all other weapons that prohibition comes first, and then elimination. This is taking the first step towards elimination.'” (Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapons Approved, The Guardian, July 7, 2017)

It's a given that the nuclear powers would not sign this treaty - who wants to give up such power? - but the treaty is a step in the right direction. If only giving voice to the desire to eliminate the threat of nuclear annihilation. Especially now that nuclear weapons are back on the menu, what with all the nuclear saber rattling between North Korea and the US.

***

Next: A Poem by Tōge Sankichi,
activist, poet, survivor of the atomic bomb

***

(Original Child Bomb is a mistranslation of the Japanese term for the atom bomb, genshi bakudan. Genshi, which means "atom," contains root characters which, when rendered individually, can possibly mean "original" and "child." There is a Thomas Merton poem and a documentary of the same name. It was supposed for years that this was the literal translation of atom bomb because the Japanese saw it as the first of its kind. As far as I can tell, original child bomb was never used by the Japanese - and yet it seems to contain, in English - because of it's strange and innocent distance from the horrors of the explosion and its aftermath - a more appropriately ominous and terrifying feel than "atom bomb.")

Alejandro Escudé: A Bird, A Prowler

This is another episode of  "Poetry: I just don't get it..." A series where I post a poem or group of poems by one author, followed by anything the author wants to say about the work. This time around it's a poem by Alejandro Escudé. 

I met Alex when we were both in the writing program at University of California, Davis. He was in poetry, I was in fiction. But since I came to the school as a poet-who-wanted-to-write-fiction, I took a poetry workshop the first quarter and was introduced to Alex's work.  

During that workshop he was working on an autobiographical sonnet series, detailing his family’s journey from Argentina to Los Angeles. I really liked that sequence, and so I was happy it ended up as the opening sequence in his book of selected poems: 

My Earthbound Eye, 

winner of the 2012 Sacramento Poetry Center Press Book Manuscript Award.

Recently, while looking for his recent poems online, I found "A Bird, A Prowler" and thought I'd share it here. 

A Bird, A Prowler

In the spaces that govern
you are often told to stop wandering.
The trees I mean, their very presence
and how it is always about filling in,
as a child might fill in a coloring page
of a dinosaur—the mighty are mighty
because they avoid asking
the essential questions, such as
where will this road take me?
And more, asking provokes a certain
sickness, the arc of a naked drone,
the burial of the chord, the night
and its imaginary plenitudes;
I recall waking once to the sound
of a scratching window, a bird? A prowler?
The sound was a language,
and I interpreted it to be the hand-claw
of a god. It said, beneath me
there’s a hollow that can only be filled
with time, and time is soul-less.
Time is mathematical milk suckled
from the teat of star-cows. It figures,
I remember thinking, and then
went about my open-mouthed snoring,
a religious mood shifting over me
like that of a pirate or a priest.

(Previously published in Compose) 

***

I once read an interview with Billy Collins in which he talked about the first line in a poem being like an opened door. In other words, a poet should invite a reader into the poem. I have drifted away from this type of aesthetic thinking. My opening lines are almost always only what I consider to be solid poetry. It could take the form of the sound, the syntax, or the expression itself. I avoid opening my door. This is personality-based. I have a theory that those of us who wholeheartedly accept humanity become narrative writers, while those who are more suspicious, not misanthropic, yet cautious, end up writing in more abstract ways. 

As far as the plot of the poem, this scenario actually occurred. There was a scratching sound at my window in the middle of night. No explanation. It was one of those strange experiences that happen when one is not really aware of being completely awake. I remember feeling proud though, proud that I wasn’t frightened like a child and consciously avoided trying to solve the scratching. Whatever was scratching was going to continue scratching. I just stayed in bed and enjoyed the mystery. This led to an attempt to not only describe the event but to a sort of meditation on what type of person would inevitably seek the source of the odd, slightly alarming noise. 

In other words, I am not one of those people who make sure everything is colored in within the proverbial human coloring book. Those who also refuse to ask what I consider the appropriate questions. The “road” is probably a bit of an allusion to Robert Frost. These people are also blind. They live their life in a subconscious manner that prevents them from being open to mystery and therefore, in my opinion, short-sighted in empathy and sensitivity in general. 

The lines in the poem about time are filled with existential anxiety. For me, as a poet, the most important thing we can do as human beings is insist on the mystery of existence while exhorting and defining authenticity and meaning. It’s a sort of “fuck you” to the possibility that time might just be “soul-less.” Therefore, be a pirate or a priest. Avoid those people who seek to computerize everything, those who consciously manipulate, or those who seek a nearly inhumane perfection.

Alejandro Escude

***

Links to My Earthbound Eye, 

and other more recent poems, 

below:

My Earthbound Eye

I Heart James Comey

The Other Me

A Proper Pressurized Blast

 Impeachment

5 Prose Poems in Blazevox/Spring 2017

5 Prose Poems 

from the manuscript

How the World was Made

currently in the Spring 2017 issue of 

Blazevox

Day of the Dead

Sage-smoke weaves around yellow leaves, wraps a bare, black trunk. I hear the continual heat-crack of hollow stems. You appear out of the smoke, stand there, mute. I want to return to that dim-lit kitchen again, watch your arthritic hands knead dough, flour-dust across your apron, while you tell your stories. (But this is not you as I once knew you. This is you as you are now: half-smoke, vague guide, weaving something new).

Years after your death I found some of your notes in the yellowing margins of your copy of Labyrinth of Solitude. Incomprehensible scrawl, written after you were more than half-blind. I thought: odd, so uncharacteristic, to be reading that book. What did I know about you? I thought: if I can decipher those words, I would have the key, some key, some important key. “Why were you reading Octavio Paz?” I say into the smoke. (But this is not you as I once knew you. This is you as you are now: half-smoke, half-guide, weaving something new).

Please tell me a story tonight. I will follow you as you ride the flying elm leaves out in the street, wherever they lead…

                                                You can find the rest at Blazevox 

here.

Or this:

The Crow Tree

1.

The city crows have been using the ash tree in front of my apartment as their roost for the last week and a half. There’s nothing stranger than a bare tree full of crows. I find it oddly comforting, though, waking up late at night, and hearing them rustle together, dreaming their crow dreams: pizza scraps and road kill, the chanting of flies.

Some think that a tree full of crows is a bad sign, a dark omen. The last time I lived near a crow-tree I was working in a dish room with boys on loan from a school work program and sad women on subsidized half wages from a home for the mentally disabled…

You can find the rest at Blazevox 

here.

And be sure to check out the rest of the magazine 
(poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction, experimental fiction, 
text art & Vispo...)

Other prose poems and/or flash fictions from 

How the World was Made

can be found at:

Anti-Heroin Chic (2016): Salvation, Near the Border, More Ghosts, Bernardo, The Great Migration

The 2River View (Fall 2016): All the Beautiful Dead, The Impossible

The 2River View (Fall 2015): Dolphins During a Storm, Plumbing a Pipe

Blazevox (Fall 2015): Trinity-Site's Last Stand

Blazevox (Fall 2016): Selling Magazines to the Joneses 

Serving House Journal (2016): March in Denver 

Bopa-lalla.