Hello Grasshoppper,
                   This is a skilful piece IMHO. I like the innocence of the scene contrasted with the horror of the nuclear attack and also the understated irony of explaining that this innocent scene was at obvious risk of such an attack. All that works well. A couple of very minor points; I sense a slight break in continuity at line 5 where the `..and through dry weather´ doesn´t seem to be logically conected to the earlier part of the sentence. And I think that your final three lines give the whole game away. Irony become sarcasm is understandable but I think it works against the total effect.
I hope this is useful.


Best wishes,    Mike






--- Alkuperäinen viesti ---
                Bang


Last night they dropped
a nuclear bomb on Canford Heath.
Lying so near a port,
it always risks a strike,
and through the dry weather,
bored children burn small holocausts
between the gorse and bramble,
turn living wood to charcoal,
like angry minor gods.

I was at an afternoon party,
standing by French windows
framing sky. Something stopped.
My ears popped, and I couldn't hear
what people were saying.
There was just enough time
to gaze at each other
and gesture at our ears,
oh-ing like shubunkin, then

we knew and all dropped
to the carpet. In that instant
before the sun devoured me
I thought of the garden outside
the larkspurs, ladybugs and robin,
all innocent as Eden.

In reality, of course,
there would be no time
for theology

                           grasshopper