Remembering Nagasaki

POETRY FORMAT, 28 Aug 2023

Jon Olsen – TRANSCEND Media Service

Bock’s Car, the B-29 Superfortress That Bombed Nagasaki

9 Aug 1945  –  9 Aug 2023

Our faith in government, once based on trust
Has now irrevocably turned to rust.
Oh yes, there are a few whose loyalty us is true.
But countless others felt the need
To attach themselves to corporate greed.

You think the president calls the shots?
Then it’s you who don’t connect the dots.
The corporate elite, that one percent
Have directed all the laws to be bent
In their favor, against us all,
Who, in their view, should be made to crawl.

Some kids, they now say, are now illegal
And must be chased by a trained beagle.
Yet all of us are really human
Except perhaps for Harry Truman
Who authorized those awful bombs
To fall on old folks, kids, and moms
Who had nothing at all to do with war
Yet paid the price to even the score.

Today as well, his kind survive
To make pesticides that kill the hives
Of our friends the friendly  bees
And devastate majestic trees.

I could go on with this tirade
Concerning all the crimes they made:
The false flag events that place the blame
On others, that they wrongly claim
So many times to promote their wars.
Instead, they could have opened doors
To honor, truth, justice, and peace
And from misery deliver true release.

So now it is our turn to find a way
To liberate ourselves and make them pay
For all the devastation they have done.
Shall we count them all, one by one?
Shattered economy, wars, and bankrupt folk,
To them it seems some kind of joke.

So now what is it that we must do
To free ourselves from their sticky glue
That binds us to their exploitation
Of us and Nature’s great creation?

I have some answers and so do you.
Together we can see this through,
Taking inspiration from words so true.
Legitimate government for me and you
Is consent of us, the governed,
Whether red, green, white, or blue

Any trust we once had
And to say it  is so very sad,
Has all been vaporized like those
Whose lives were taken far away
On that unspeakable and horrid day.

Like the Founding Fathers of before,
It is our turn to discover the core
Of a new say, so precious and bold,
And reject this system  cruel and cold.

________________________________________

Jon Olsen – B.A. in philosophy from Bates College; Master degree in philosophy from University of Hawai’i; anti-imperialist activist since 1966 and founding member (in Hawai’i) of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), Resistance (to the Draft), Peace and Freedom Party, and Hawai’i Green Party. Owned and operated a radical bookstore 1971-1977. Active supporter of Hawaiian sovereignty since late 1970’s with personal relationships among past and current Hawaiian activists. Currently in frequent communication with those involved with the on-going upsurge of interest in real sovereignty in Hawai’i.

This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 28 Aug 2023.

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