August 6th, '45 Poem by Dave SmithWhite

8-15 Tuesday morning
A burning flash dissolved the skies,
Death reigned without warning…
August 6th, '45.

In a lightning crash of frozen moment,
Thousands were incinerated and scourged alive;
Fire-winds flayed through paper houses…
August 6th, '45.

People cauterized to the melting earth,
Their scalding blood, their flesh that fried:
They were the lucky ones…
August 6th, '45.

Who put the horror in Hiroshima?
Who wrote shock on the human eye?
Who etched terror onto mankind's future
That August 6th, '45?

Across the war-scape of that flattened city
Women stumbled too numb to cry,
Their skin pulped with boiling blisters…
August 6th, '45.

Lines of shuffling, staring figures
Too stunned and sick to wonder why,
Their faces shocked but past all panic…
August 6th, '45.

People peeled like red bananas,
Those people lived but quickly died;
Skin that hung like paper streamers…
August 6th, '45.

Who put the horror in Hiroshima?
Who permitted genocide?
Who sanctioned that mad disaster
On August 6th, '45.

Lurching beings like lifeless corpses
Silhouette an ashen sky;
They wandered, abject, without purpose…
August 6th, '45.

Whose pride murdered Nagasaki?
Whose decision prepared the lies?
Were they doomed or just unlucky
That August day, '45?

Escape's denied to all survivors,
Cancers haunt them till the day they die.
And their heirs will curse the craven authors
Of August 6th, '45.