The Late, Late Show

        It's too late for our planet. Earth is already polluted past repair: Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, Fukushima, spent atomic fuel rods stored everywhere and unable to be destroyed; three gigantic eddies of trash in the oceans; India and others pouring rivers of raw sewage into the waters we drink; factories everywhere filling the skies with poison that we breathe. If we had any sense, we would find another planet to inhabit and destroy right now. Those who say "global warming" doesn't exist should be left behind to cope for themselves.

 

THE LATE, LATE SHOW

By Lewis Turco

 

                       It is now ten minutes after midnight,

                December 5th, 1965.  In honor

                             of the attack by the Japanese

                                    on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on

December 7th, 1941, all channels

 

                       are running movies about war.  On one

                channel, the come-on is newsreel footage of the

                             bombing inserted into a film

                                    made by the Japanese.  Channel

9 has topped that: also Japanese, the movie is

 

                       science-fiction: the Third World War is just

                beginning.  I'll take a gangster film — Channel 3:

                             it sounds incredible, but the third

                                    world war is already over

over here.  This one is American.  Let me check

 

                       the T. V. Guide: "'Five.' (1951).

                The only five survivors of atomic war

                             revive man's ancient hostilities

                                    and prejudices."  The whole thing

is starting again.  So I have turned to writing this

 

                       poem as I watch.  I have survived one

                Armageddon; I shall build a microcosm.

                             I am writing very carefully:

                                    the woman is pregnant, and the

Negro is building a house.  I want my facts to be

 

                       accurate, in case this is the last thing

                to be left.  The sounds do not matter, only the

                             sense.  If you are reading this, I hope

                                    that it will not upset you, sir,

whoever you are.  It may be that my typewriter

 

                       was hocked, passed peacefully from dark shelf to

                dark shelf in ancient shops until it was sold for

                             scrap.  Grant us this: that was possible.

                                    But if you should find this lying

rolled in my machine, the letters of our alphabet

 

                       scrambled in the dust, grant us this much more:

we foresaw the end too clearly for it to matter.

 

From Fearful Pleasures: The Complete Poems of Lewis Turco 1959-2007, Scottsdale, AZ: www.StarCloudPress.com, 2007. ISBN 978-1-932842-19-7, cloth; ISBN 978-1-932842-20-3, paper. Also available in a Kindle edition from Amazon.