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Before the advent of the age of the bomb,
the nuclear age, the world was less secure!
In rapid succession two World Wars proved
dominance an irresistible lure,
which created tyrants in historic mould
to conquer the world, to rule, to endure.
When on that fateful day the atom bomb
exploded on a test rig in the desert,
Oppenheimer, over-awed, invoked wisdom
from Hinduism, ‘I am become Death,
the destroyer of worlds!’ – the chain-reaction
size and brightness of the sun viewed from earth.
Within the decades after World War 2
a hush fell over the world as the bomb
threat created a widening hiatus,
peace of cold war, like the peace of a tomb
in anticipation! – that after years
inured lost its connotation of doom.
And now, non-nuclear nations were released
like lions into this desert, there to
scrap like hell-cats, take world centre-stage, teased
by visions of a secure future, who
invoked their tradition and lore, well-pleased
by the tied hands of nuclear powers, to
pull their tails, and count them inferior! -
to take them on! – who, to this day, rely
on the reticence in deployment of nuclear
arms, to guarantee the longevity
attained: mere gunmen turned modern day bearer
of historical age-old tyranny.
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