"eisenhower" poems - Hello Poetry

You were born in the cold black heart of the Cold War, under the fist of Eisenhower, under the satellite eye of Mother Russia—1960 America. Chinese Year of the Rat. U-2 Pilot Gary Powers forgot to **** himself. Space Race Baby looking up at stars she does not comprehend— the world is big, the sky is bigger—Shhhhhhhhhhh: huddle under your desk in case a big, black, bomb falls down and burns you so bad you feel nothing but cold cold cold; huddle inside yourself in case your plane is shot down over Soviet soil and everything turns to red, turns to blood, turns to your fingers shaking and your eyes stinging, and you think about that time when your mother told you about the Year of the Rat being associated with white, with the Chinese color of death. You think: This is it. There is where it ends, but this is not it; this is not the end. You will die in a hospital bed in 49 years, so just give it some time, alright? Khrushchev and Eisenhower can play Tug-of-War and Vietnam can burn in the meantime. Mother, when you were born you could not breathe. Mother, when you died it was because you could not breathe. Mother, when you are not here I think of Gary Powers not having time to press “Self-Destruct,” of the Year of the Rat choking to death on Lily of the Valley, of learning how to talk to the 58,286 dead Vietnam War soldiers. I want to know what it is like to look up at the sky and fear a missile strike smack in the middle of winter. I want to know how cold the Cold War felt to you in the Chinese Year of the Rat, and what he felt when U-2 Pilot Gary Powers fell like Lucifer into the arms of Mother Russia.

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Aug 11, 2015

Aug 11, 2015 at 6:45 AM UTC

taylor-st-onge

A Constellation Depicting Stockpiles of Nuclear Weapons

You were born in the cold black heart of the Cold War, under the fist of Eisenhower, under the satellite eye of Mother Russia—1960 America. Chinese Year of the Rat. U-2 Pilot Gary Powers forgot to **** himself. Space Race Baby looking up at stars she does not comprehend— the world is big, the sky is bigger—Shhhhhhhhhhh: huddle under your desk in case a big, black, bomb falls down and burns you so bad you feel nothing but cold cold cold; huddle inside yourself in case your plane is shot down over Soviet soil and everything turns to red, turns to blood, turns to your fingers shaking and your eyes stinging, and you think about that time when your mother told you about the Year of the Rat being associated with white, with the Chinese color of death. You think: This is it. There is where it ends, but this is not it; this is not the end. You will die in a hospital bed in 49 years, so just give it some time, alright? Khrushchev and Eisenhower can play Tug-of-War and Vietnam can burn in the meantime. Mother, when you were born you could not breathe. Mother, when you died it was because you could not breathe. Mother, when you are not here I think of Gary Powers not having time to press “Self-Destruct,” of the Year of the Rat choking to death on Lily of the Valley, of learning how to talk to the 58,286 dead Vietnam War soldiers. I want to know what it is like to look up at the sky and fear a missile strike smack in the middle of winter. I want to know how cold the Cold War felt to you in the Chinese Year of the Rat, and what he felt when U-2 Pilot Gary Powers fell like Lucifer into the arms of Mother Russia.