H e a r t S o n s & H e a r t D a u g h t e r s of A l l e n G i n s b e r g

N a p a l m H e a l t h S p a : R e p o r t 2 0 1 4 : A r c h i v e s E d i t i o n

JIM COHN

The Woes Of Godzilla

“I enter with spirit out loud into your fuel rod drums

Underground on soundless thrones and beds of lead.”

––Allen Ginsberg “Plutonium Ode”

Cars, sea tankers, float across runways, 18-wheelers

Drift like toy trucks past warehouses, also swept away.

In the coastal town of Rikuzentakata,

Only 5,900 of the town's 23,000 residents took shelter.

The rest were unaccounted for.

Roughly 2,700 buildings closer to the water

Were swallowed by the wave and there is nothing left.

Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear plant reactors explode.

Last-ditch maneuvers inject seawater directly to core.

Exposed fuel rods weep radiation.

I consider Basho’s journey to deep north,

Walking through Sendai,

To the coast along Matsushima Bay.

A hyohakusha—“one who moves without direction”

I can see him writing

Tired of cherry,

Tired of this whole world,

I sit facing muddy sake

And black rice.

14 March 2011

[Originally published in NHS 2011, http://www.poetspath.com/napalm/nhs11/.]