SITTING PRETTY IN ATOMIC CITY

Up in Los Alamos there is a place
The Zia salvage yard, where face to face
With some disturbing facts
You’ll find you’re moved to solve the riddle
Of why we let worlds burn while Emperors fiddle
Why man, mankind attacks

The rarest treasures, world-renowned
In ancient Egypt have been found
But no Pharaoh could afford
These pyramids of gleaming steel
Components, prototypes surreal
This trillion-dollar hoard

Where anybody can reclaim
These artifacts of folly, shame
Come on let’s rummage through
The storehouse of Atomic City
High on the hill and sitting pretty
Experiments that grew

Obsolete or out of control
Are broken down by teams who roll
Into the labs and sweep
A hundred tons of rare alloys
Load them onto trucks, convoys
And sell the stuff real cheap

Buy by the pound or by the piece
Or by the lot, fill your valise
With scraps, some sensation
Some monument to human greed
Detonators, all guaranteed
Free from radiation

And one poor sap keeps coming back
Year in, year out, he brings his sack
And hauls away the parts.
Transformed beneath his magic spell
A bomb becomes a temple bell
Designed to wake the hearts

Of those who hear the dulcet tone
The “sword turned into plowshare” moan
Of metals making song
Instead of launching that caress
Of megaton explosiveness
We’ve been dreading for so long

Price has remade these forms of death
Instilled in them a spark, a breath
A life their very own
Transformed them into beings who
Clearly, directly look at you
And speak, not in your ear, but to
Your heart, mind, soul, blood and bone.

                       ©Rosé
                          2005

Rosetonka@aol.com

POETS AND ATOMIC ARTISTS

An artist down in Santa Fe
Who turns out pieces night and day
Whose life's example shows the way
For many on the path
Is grinning at a private joke
Which came to him just as he woke
And now he's looking for a smoke
To take into the bath

Here every room is jammed with art
All fashioned with his hand and heart
To find your way you'd need a chart
It flows into the yard
A solid mass of art so dense
Thank God the place has got a fence
Or this outrageous opulence
Would fill the boulevard

It's morning and the world's in shreds
It makes men jump back in their beds
The covers pulled over their heads
To keep away the dawn
The artist grins and rises up
He brews the coffee, finds the cup
He drinks and smokes and pets the pup
 While wondering what to pawn

But nothing here is worth the dust
Or worth a little flake of rust
Not worth a crumb, no, not a crust
At the pawnbroker's shop
Out there you need something that's real
To have a chance to make a deal
A watch, a suit, something you steal
Not art or some such slop

Poets and atomic artists
Make the maps, they are the chartists
And among the very smartest
Life-forms in the crowd.
Focusing an inward vision
Clearing vistas with precision
On a course without collision
Quiet, they speak out loud

Though doomed to poverty they're blessed
Unrecognized among the rest
Unknown they pass the hardest test
Each day they blaze a trail
Alone through unexplored terrain
Ignoring pleasure, bearing pain
Spilling their life-blood from each vein
While to the stars they sail.
 
                                     ©Rosé, 2000

contact Rosé:
Rosetonka@aol.com

THE DREAM

Look! Tony's riding on a horse
Along a river to its source
He's driven by some driving force
Which keeps him on the go

The jungle swoops down to the shore
And covers up the forest floor
But he knows every wall's a door
And moves on with the flow

Caught in a mighty monsoon's wrath
The river washes out the path
Swamps them in a torrential bath
A dreadful undertow

Look! Tony's swimming up the stream
Deep in his eye a distant gleam
Chasing the impossible dream
His face, in dark, aglow

The river swerves around a bend
He disappears and I pretend
He's swimming still, swim on, my friend
Swim on, and Westward ho!
 
     ©Rosé, 3/23/2000

contact Rosé:
Rosetonka@aol.com