Dogs of Chernobyl

or When once he dreamed—apocalypse

Editor’s Note:

Happy Tuesday.

Today, Frank Kidd prepared a poem that is quite gripping and speaks with a lively spirit. I find his voice, both in verse and prose, to be potent and memorable. Something tells me there will be more of this primal poetry.

- Frank Theodat

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Spittle and blood foamed, 

at the mouth of the boar. 

Great tusks,  

ivory painted scarlet.  

The pig's blood pooled, 

on the stones of a cathedral, 

now laid low, 

where the hogs occasionally rooted. 

Carven stone and,  

stained glass 

scattered iridescent. 

Vegetation reclaimed wood, 

once formed pews. 

The old boar had opened him wide. 

He dropped his spear  

And with ragged breath,  

he climbed  

back up his mountain.  

He had named it, 

Iliad 

for he had found it, 

and found the valley below,  

and founded its kingdom. 

He seated himself on a flat rock, 

his throne. 

Many nights,  

he’d sat there,  

beheld the future. 

Dreamed of it  

never worried about it. 

Behind him was the oak,  

that marked the graves  

of his first, third, and fifth children.  

Even now, he strained his ears  

that he might catch their playful laughter  

from the fields above and below.  

They’d learned Latin 

and memorized the classics.  

On Sunday, they read the bible.  

learned the sword and spear.  

to tend life and to take it.  

The sun blazed brighter.  

He shielded his eyes,  

just as he had years ago,  

when in a flash 

the world was made new;  

wiped clean. 

In less than a day  

what had been explored  

was made unknown.  

What had been captured;  

set free.  

What had devolved;  

given new pressure.  

What was weak;  

made strong.  

The frontier returned,  

and so, he sat,  

as he often had,  

in dreams long past.  

When once he had dreamed—apocalypse.  

Long ago, 

in the slow times at work,  

which was all times at make-work.  

He’d hovered his cursor and typed “the dogs…”  

The Dogs of Chernobyl. 

He clicked absently  

through thousands of images  

and found that only the buildings  

looked dead.  

Greenery reclaimed old mortar  

asphalt torn asunder.  

Long grasses gave shelter  

trembling field mice and  

the dogs of Chernobyl  

learned once more  

the way of the hunt.  

Wasteland—lifeland. 

Chernobyl before disaster 

revealed to him was a concrete plain.  

Dead.  

Empty save for the odd tree,  

or a patch of well-maintained grass.  

Tiny human figures transgressed  

across slate gray land.  

Leaned back in his chair,  

fingers laced behind his head 

flickering fluorescents 

his eyes burned with the white bright light  

for which he yearned 

When once he dreamed—apocalypse. 

After the first strike, he hunkered down for a week.  

Took cover in the concrete tornado shelter behind the old farmhouse,  

which he’d paid too much for.  

He lived off cold beans  

(thrown at the last minute into a Walmart sack)  

sat shivering in a pile of blankets,  

stared into the pitch black. 

Six days before he decided  

dying from radiation—couldn’t be worse. 

The first year was hard,  

and cold, and hungry.  

The hardest of his life.  

He killed a man,  

then two, then three.  

But the first still hunted him  

when he closed his eyes,  

and sometimes the gimpish fool won,  

but most of the time,  

he still beat him to death with a crowbar.  

If parallel worlds were real,  

he imagined the gimp always lost.  

He’d always felt his dreams were real.  

Glimpses of the future.  

Of things to come.  

Of things long past.  

If he had dreamed something,  

he’d created it, 

and if something had been created,  

then it existed. 

When once he dreamed—apocalypse. 

Had he not dreamed of the valley below?  

Had he not dreamed of his beautiful wife,  

her chestnut hair 

and heaving breast.  

If not, how then  

had he recognized her  

as the mother of his children  

upon first meeting? 

He had dreamed of open plains  

and collapsing structures, 

of great herds,  

and green grass,  

of wild dogs,  

and wilder men,  

mounted on the backs of well-bred horses.  

When once he had dreamed—apocalypse. 

Had it not come to pass? 

He coughed again 

drew his hand from the wound at his side, 

slick and warm.  

The night’s breeze  

cooled his flesh.  

And he smiled for a life well lived. 

“I am become life, the creator of worlds.” 

The sun blazed brightest  

before the threshold,  

the first stars  

welcomed him to ancient hearths.