26 September 2022

Editor’s Note: Here’s a draft of something Marlow typed back in 2017. Then, the pudgy, little big rocket man of Asia was making disturbing noises about something existential. We talked about one of the Earth’s true Big Rocket Men making similar serious noises this week, the ones about “not bluffing” about a dramatic change in the situation in Ukraine. At the Fire Ring, we think it is time to share it.

– Vic

26 October 2017
No People on the Streets

Author’s note: I penned this earlier during a month of North Korean bombast and the aftermath of Vegas shooting. Then American bike paths and church pews were suddenly no longer safe. It seemed then that we were being seared or slow roasted by these events into a numbness that might lead to us dropping our guards to some larger more systemic tragedy. Now that North Korean troubled waters seem to be on the verge of another tempest, it is time to share it.

– Marlow

Threats of war pushing down on us
Pressing down on us, a war that none ask for
Under pressure that could bring our world crashing down
Might blow up a country or two
Putting people on the streets

Media blabbity blah yesterday
Blabbity blabbity blah today
More of the same tomorrow, but that’s okay
Where’s the terror of knowing
That the world might be about to

Blow up
We’ll watch good countrymen
Screaming “Let me out”
Pray tomorrow gets us safer
Threats of war, no people on the streets

Media chirpin’ around, kicking our fears around the floor
Never ending days, it never rains, but it pours
No people on the streets
No people on the streets
Filled with the terror of knowing
That war might break out
Will we be watching good countrymen
Screaming “Let me out”
Praying tomorrow gets us safer
Threats of war, but no people on the streets

We’ve turned away from it all like a blind man
We’re sitting on fences hoping it’ll all work out
Waiting for them but will the world get slashed and torn
Why, why, why?

Insanity laughs while we’re break taking
Can’t we give ourselves one more chance
No people on the streets, edge of the night
No people on the streets, no hope that we’ll change our ways

Is this the world’s last dance
Is this it
People on the streets
Under pressure
No people on the streets.

No people on the streets of Hiroshima – AP file photo September 5 1945. Complete text of the Tokyo English-language broadcast as
recorded by the Federal Communications Commission days after the first atomic bomb fell on Hiroshima:

“With the gradual restoration of order following the disastrous ruin that struck the city of Hiroshima in the wake of the enemy’s new-type bomb on Monday morning, the authorities are still unable to obtain a definite check-up on the extent of the casualties sustained by the civilian population.

“Medical relief agencies that were rushed from the neighboring districts were unable to distinguish, much less identify, the dead from the injured.

“The impact of the bomb was so terrific that practically all living things, human and animals, were literally seared to death by the tremendous heat and pressure engendered by the blast. All of the dead and injured were burned beyond recognition.

“With houses and buildings crushed, including the emergency medical facilities, the authorities are having their hands full in giving every available relief possible under the circumstances.

“The effect of the bomb was widespread. Those outdoors burned to death, while those indoors were killed by the indescribable pressure and heat.”

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