Purgatory On Pacific
p. 80 · Read in the full issue
Paradise
(Dedicated to the protesters of the French Nuclear Tests in the Pacific.)
By John Saunana
The cylinder of man-made thunder, A red balloon of flickering lightning, Sets ablaze a benign Pacific with arsenic fragrance of Purgatory, Denuding a Polynesian Paradise atoll hideaway, By computerised earth tremors and tidal waves.
The daylight sun skims on spools of red spittle, Which refracts filtrates by the ominous sunset abuse, In a stealthy swooping wings of a floating swizzle A lone seagull scoops stained heavenly manna on its crumbling beak, And the “Bonito” swivels dizzily in the underwater world.
No life’s worth a dime in the march of Francaise Civilisation, Of Scientific and Technological inventions, Fused in the vanishing soul and condensing chalice of Communion wine, The hues of human resurrection jealously guarded by a mute revitalised Napoleon.
Inhospitable dark clouds of compressed TNT, Of velocity one-million-and-one megatons, Buffeting Mururoa “Vive la France” Gifts in Santa Claus dome-shaped mushrooms, Mururoa nuclear “Fall-Out” accessories for the mamas and the papas, „ And Francaise Pandora Chests of artificial skulls and limbs for the stillborn . . .