Trillion Dollar Question
By Gerry Sloan
(for Dick Bennett)
Q: How many missiles does it take
to create a nuclear winter?
A: One. Or maybe two, in case
the first attempt misfires.
E.g. India and Pakistan have only
a few dozen weapons.
Whereas Russia and the USA
have thousands of warheads between us
and keep lobbying for more because...
Because it's extremely profitable
for certain special interest groups
whose heirs can't cash their inheritance
without food or oxygen. Even a modest
nuclear attack would still kill billions,
our tailgate parties forced to serve
sludge and soylent green.
We don't even have a label
for madness on such an epic scale.
Even the small word "greed"
can't begin to contain it.
Bonus question:
Why are the two words "shark attack"
more frightening than the two words
"nuclear winter?"
But not to worry. At the Arkansas
Military Museum is an antique console
for a nuclear launch, ten feet long
so a single madman acting alone
cannot destroy the planet.
Gerry Sloan is a retired music professor living in Fayetteville, Arkansas. He is a lifetime member of OMNI: Center for Peace, Justice and Ecology. He also won first prize for his "Poem for Palestine" sponsored by the Gaza Freedom Flotilla in Canada. Recent poems appear in: Arkansas Review, The Midwest Quarterly, Blood & Bourbon, and Rat's Ass Review.
Spread the word