As Oppenheimer opens today at cinemas across the country, award-winning poet and Patron of CND Peace Education, Antony Owen, sends his response.
Dear Mr Oppenheimer
Beneath your crafted nebula
I picture your dead noon walk
casting a long shadow eastward.
In the post atomic abendrot
you brush off Alamogordo sand
like glitter from a forbidden kiss.
Dear Mr Oppenheimer,
sky is badged in yellow stars,
magenta stars, violet dust.
Dear Mr Oppenheimer,
this night your star was born
sunset bled over Hiroshima.
At the IMAX film of your life
a man scoffs bulb warm Dorito’s
sharing his awe on TikTok –
the new age Brittanica.