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No Dr. Strangelove

Michael Ceraolo

It was one of the greatest surprises in recorded history,
that there had not been a nuclear war
The second half of the last century of the second millennium
had lived in extreme dread
of the specter of total nuclear war,
or the specter of ‘limited’ nuclear war,
or even the specter of rogue explosions
detonated by determined destructionists
(just because you’re paranoid
doesn’t mean no one is out to get you),
and this dread both real and imagined
lived on well into the third millennium,
expressed in silly official acronyms
and seeping into the stories of culture
high, middle, and low, seeping
into all forms of telling these stories
This dread was made even worse by the speculation
of what would happen after the worst had come to pass
(dread of the idea of burying the waste generated
in the peaceful use of nuclear energy,
waste that wouldn’t be harmless for dozens of millennia,
somehow wasn’t as scary as the idea
that the bombs’ explosions could cause
‘perpetual’ winter,
perpetual at least on the human scale)
And even then such a fate was just barely avoided,
because as the world warmed most everywhere
those who had denied the fact
until the tipping point had passed
now called on all technologies
to rescue them from the technology-created mess
And among the fixes seriously considered was the idea
of creating the dreaded nuclear winter
to counteract the continued warming
But the Strangelove moment strangely passed
in a fit of sanity-----

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