Ode to Plutonium: Oh Fukushima!

Plutonium, named after the Ruler of hell

Invented in a science lab

Created in artificial Uranium hells

They call them reactor wells.

 

Uranium, Thorium, names that ought to strike fear.

Radioactive things that decay slowly, over thousands of years.

Til, tiny particles no one can ever see,

Fly out of atoms and strike them.

Then the fun begins.

 

Uranium, Thorium, can radioactively decay.

There are certain of their children who are dangerous and fey

And plutonium is a member of that game.

Plutonium can do more than decay.

It can break in two

 

Plutonium! made by the pennyweight, made by the ton

Turned into bombs, dropped on Nagasaki,

Built into armories, that can destroy cities by the thousands.

Monstrous Giant Spears of Death. Armaggedon's key.

 

Oh Fukushima! and we put them into water.

 

We put them into water to heat it to a boil

We sold it to the world, as a means to save men from toil

Plutonium would save the world

from toil and pain.

Plutonium would provide boundless energy

So cold northerners would never freeze again

 

But with barbaric idiocy,

they put it in bottles that break

And when they broke, they broke with mighty energy.

 

Oh Fukushima!

No water! It gets hot

Fuel Rods melt. Zirconium burns!

The storage pools are on top of the reactors

They melt and burn too.

 

Fires burn, hot and unstoppable

As plutonium and U235 do what they do

They melt together and each atom breaks!

That is what they did!

Oh Fukushima!

Scatter and burn! Each fission reaction releases a stew of children!

Plutonium becomes barium and strontium!

It "bursts" when a neutron hits it

becoming a smoking, melting metallic stew.

They call this stew corium.

 

Oh Furkushima Corium!

It is a blob, a monster, an ever burning fiery magma.

So hot it burns water!

So unstoppable it burns through the places man thought he

A Creature of nightmares and holocausts.

A Child of Hope and hate.

A man-made Demon.

Smoking into the air, dissolving into the water.

Monster Corium! Oh Fukushima!

This demon released;

That only the hubris of men thinks can be contained.

that erupted, erupts into the world as a spirit of death.

... and maybe end our lives.

Forming Hot particles that burn humans to death.

spreading around the world in plumes, radioactive wreaths.

Poisoning the North Atlantic, North America with fallout in dust and rain.

A statistical nightmare of Cancers, leukemias, weakness and pain.

It burns til it is all smoke. And it kills all manner of folk

Far from where it is released.

Oh Fukushima!

Will you kill us all?