Garnet Poems: An Anthology of Connecticut Poetry Since 1776

The Late, Late Show

135 leWis turCo The Late, Late Show It is now ten minutes after midnight, December 5th, 1965. In honor of the attack by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7th, 1941, all channels are running movies about war. On one channel, the come-on is newsreel footage of the bombing inserted into a film made by the Japanese. Channel 9 has topped that: also Japanese, the movie is science-fiction: the Third World War is just beginning. I’ll take a gangster film—Channel 3: it sounds incredible, but the third world war is already over over here. This one is American. Let me check the T.V. Guide: “‘Five.’ (1951). The only five survivors of atomic war revive man’s ancient hostilities and prejudices.” The whole thing is starting again. So I have turned to writing this poem as I watch. I have survived one Armageddon; I shall build a microcosm. I am writing very carefully: the woman is pregnant, and the Negro is building a house. I want my facts to be accurate, in case this is the last thing to be left. The sounds do not matter, only the sense. If you are reading this, I hope that it will not upset you, sir, whoever you are. It may be that my typewriter 136 gArnet poems was hocked, passed peacefully from dark shelf to dark shelf in ancient shops until it was sold for scrap. Grant us this: that was possible. But if you should find this lying rolled in my machine, the letters of our alphabet scrambled in the dust, grant us this much more: we foresaw the end too clearly for it to matter. ...