Seething since 2000*
Post-holocaust tram
I wrote this poem after visiting Hiroshima for the first time in 2004.
It was later published in my first full-length poetry collection, We Will Disappear (2007).
While we remember August 6 as the day Hiroshima died, and August 9 as the day the same fate was handed to Nagasaki, I personally was not aware of August 5 as the anniversary of the Cowra breakout, an event that has left its mark on both Australia and Japan.
& if on reaching Hiroshima Station You step off a bullet & wander out Into the aftermath: a diorama for Which you have no name yet here At the beginning of your tranquil 21st century journey by tram these Tracks that hold you upright squeak & scream with sixty years of shame Like destiny still wooden carrying That horsey scent rattles somehow They survived beneath the epicentre A direct hit on their infrastructure (Where it hurts) for which you are Now paying your share ironically At the exit in this civilised space & there are no inspectors merely Crayon drawings speaking of those Inconceivable first days lingering Gamma rays & the resumption of Normal services forty eight hours Post Enola Gay on track (where it Hurts) all the fragmented sitting Neatly on their familiar wooden Racks barely bandaged the tram Just trundles onwards oblivious To the empty pockets too reliable To demand a fare circling round & round atomic boxcars have no Final destination beyond the zero Round & round an invisible coin’s Clatter nobody’s talking nothing’s Moving – & nobody’s getting off
