...impoverished by preparations for the ultimate war...

From Jim Schley's preface to a wonderful and terrible anthology:

We live in a world impoverished by preparations for the ultimate war. While claims and threats made in the name of “defense” by various leaders have grown ever more grandiose, there is epidemic hunger, infant mortality, illiteracy, and unemployment. More and more apparent is an epidemic anxiety: people everywhere are terrified of the carnage that would result from detonation of even one of the fifty thousand or more nuclear weapons presently stockpiled [as of 1983]. Psychologists, social workers, and philosophers are telling us that anticipation of a nuclear catastrophe has immeasurably affected human perceptions, even in very small children.

This book – bringing together the various forms … poem, essay, story – never strays from its determination to be an ultimate warning and guide. It’s a powerful read.

Yes, I know. There is only the Church
of Eros. Billion small hairs. Golden.
Winding to the secret of secrets. And I know
in the vast fallen parts of earth, my faith unrequired,
the red leaf mosses build on twists of stone.

from “Credo,” Michael Daley

…militarism and nuclear proliferation can be seen as an inevitable outgrowth of a political system historically hostile to human life, one facet of a continuum of violence against us. Nuclear annihilation is not the sole threat we face, but one of a hundred possible bloody ends.

from “‘Fractious, Kicking, Messy, Free’: Feminist Writers Confront the Nuclear Abyss,” Barbara Smith

An empty ant track, scuffed by delicate feet.
The violent wind has passed. The hole gapes.
Corn will not sprout under lowering clouds.
The woodpecker’s nailed to the bark of a tree.
No one can say what happened to the sky.

I fall to a dark place where words echo.
In the dunes in this well, sand sifts
through the clock of my cupped hands.
Is there any sense in measuring time?

When exposed by rains in an unknown future,
I’ll be considered a significant find
as they measure my bones, skull span, and ribs.
Non one will know my thoughts about myself.

”An Afternoon’s Wandering,” Kolyo Sevov [Trans. John Balaban & Elena Hristova]

Writing in a Nuclear Age, Ed. Jim Schley (New England Review and Bread Loaf Quarterly, 1983)

This book is a must read ... a must encounter. Ten Books That Will Ripple Your Mind ... No. 3