after listening to this radiolab program.
call those
bombs ‘whimsical’
marvel at how
the desperate
can be so
poetic in
their retaliatory
strategy
milk the
pathos of
small town
america
disrupted
tragic,
indeed,
those innocent
lives lost
by bombs
attached
to paper balloons
floated on
a jetstream
also tragic
is the
insensitive act
of telling the
story
on the
anniversary
of the bombing
of a hundred
thousand innocents
in a major city
on the 70th
anniversary
of american planes
raining terror
over tokyo,
this radioshow
gave barely
a mention
to the horrific
american actions
before and after
the oh-so-interesting
and tragic strategy of
paper balloon bombs
a case of
hipster
historianism
all about
“interesting”
and with little
critical thought
or nuance
i think about
the land mines that
are still being
accidentally detonated
and excavated in my
parents’ homeland,
and i wonder about
the american companies who
are still banking
on those dividends
i kept listening,
waiting, hoping to hear
something more about
mass bombings and
air raids and
all the horrors
america perpetrated
toward the japanese
and around the world
and at home
before and after
and always
that the wind-blown bombs
were about as poetic
as an act of war could be
and that america has
always preferred more gruesome
strategies
and has now perfected
those too-poetic
methods of terror
and now sends drones
all over
the middle east
narinda heng 