70 years ago -- Without apologies, Little Boy and Fat Man

 

August 6 and August 9, 1945

when he returned from the war   the Pacific Theatre

                                                                                       after the A-bombs were dropped . . .

. . . look at him getting sloppy with pronouns when he ought to use proper nouns
                               

if anything deserved proper nouns   its was those things which had vanquished tens and hundreds of thousands of lives

unaccounted lives 

                                                                                                                          

he couldnt   any more than he could let human lives reside alone among those horrific numbers

as if any life was worth more than another

the grotesque randomness

human lives were no more precious or exquisite than lesser life forms destroyed without batting an eye

We were sensational at that

he was trained     and accomplished at that

properly now   

                         America flushed  what it must have deemed toilet bowls  Hiroshima and Nagasaki

with Little Boy and Fat Man

properly now

                         without Honor

proving what he long had maintained

there was no such thing as a civilian

all were combatants

nor was there a living thing called civility

                                                                     and certainly not after Little Boy and Fat Man(theres a comicbook begging) decimated a kneeling enemy

 

but Little Boy and Fat Man did avoid the landing US troops and Allies  himself included  on the Japanese Mainland

the Japanese Maimedland                                                                     

                                            is how he referred to it

but he was out of it

returned to the Midwest

there he wrested with his night terrors

his lone  and lonesome companions

as if anyone there who hadnt been in combat would understand

or had gone through the meatgrinder he let himself fall into

for words

 

words  that Hemingway described as abstracts  such as glory and honor and courage and hallowed

they were obscene beside the concrete names of villages and the numbers of the roads

the names of the rivers  the numbers of regiments   and the dates

                                                                                                                        published in 1929

he read it  A Farewell to Arms 

and yet he jumped into it with all the bloodlust a teenager with a bellyful of liquor would

despite knowing better

his night terrors reminded him how well he knew better

they swabbed his sleeping mind and flooded his wakened eyes

as if the years of weary war-sleeplessness  catnapping  had held them hostage  and tortured them

 

this was their blowback

they came on him breathing fire and shrieking  howling like banshees  insatiable she-devils

psychopomps anxious to escort him from this Life into the Next

not understanding he didnt Believe

but if he didnt  why could he see them  they might have averred if they werent shrieking

he couldnt ignore or defy them

so joined at the hip they traversed his mindscape and landscapes and helped him paint with colours  ugly  discordant

and wonderful

they painted as much as he did  with virtuosity  and many times he found himself staring at a painting afterwards

seeing them the first time

only his etched name and the date revealed he attended their executions

some looked an execution  the ignored pleas    despising compassion

hard sharp realism inculcated in abstract

on the street the recurring 

                                           I have to have it!

inside  he answered

                                  I had to paint it

returned Home?

(originally under wisterias,  Sunday,  11  6. 06)

1619,  Monday,  3  8. 15