Large Fierce Mammal

It’s all downhill from here. Click to enlarge. Source.

Dotted across the world, relics of the Cold War, are edifices deeply delved wherein would shelter members of governments whose mishandling of events had brought their nations to the brink, and thence across the threshold of nuclear Armageddon. Built in the belief that they and their failed leadership would still have value when the radioactive dust had finished settling upon the wasteland, and that bureaucracy would hold sway in the face of more immediate existential matters, I suppose it’s fortunate that the bunkers and their builders were never called to test.

Today’s poem was inspired by my many long past forays to Canadian Forces Station (CFS) Debert and hours spent in the company of fellow Emergency Management officials in what was still actively operated as the Regional Emergency Government Headquarters.

The coffee was always fresh and in limitless supply.

No Bunker For You

By LFM

There is a place northeast of here
Once built of concrete, earth, and fear,
Wherein a chosen few would hide
From what their acts had wrought outside.

Though hard rain fell upon the land
They’d live to see things back in hand,
And take control of what remained
On soil the nation’s blood had stained.

Self-cast as saviours resurrected,
No thought spared they to be corrected,
For in their folly they believed
The populace they served deceived.

What might have happened, no one knows,
The war once feared ne’er came to blows,
No victims cried for kings returned,
No count was made of bridges burned.

In sober thought it might be guessed,
Who lives by sins left unconfessed,
Self-valued high above all men,
Might be advised to think again.