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David Stephenson
reads
Bunker
in Real Audio format.
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The urge is in his blood. His family had
An air-raid shelter for atomic war;
He has unfocused memories of his dad
Unlocking it, to fiddle with the store
Of shelved and crated army surplus things
Which filled the secret world behind its door.
Now, as a man, he has foreshadowings
Which drive him to equip his own retreat
With similar supplies and furnishings:
Canned food, bottled water, a complete
Array of guns, some girlie magazines,
A case of scotch, flashlights and batteries,
A first-aid kit, gold coins, and gasoline,
All stashed within a thick-walled basement room
Beneath some stairs, its narrow doorway screened
With rubbish, like a minor pharaoh's tomb.
He monitors a vague conspiracy
Through lone-nut tracts which preach impending doom;
Through an evolving numerology
He fixes dates when dark fates will converge
And order will give way to anarchy,
And he, with his vast stockpile, will emerge
A sort of sci-fi movie overlord,
The damsel's savior and the mutant's scourge.
When each computed date goes by the board
And nothing happens, he is not depressed
Or moved to doubt his picture of the world;
He rather wonders what detail he missed
That threw his numbers off, and turns again
To pondering his esoteric texts.
As years roll by, he diligently tends
His bunker, which in anxious hours seems
An absolute on which he can depend,
The visible expression of his dreams
And faith, his certainty of things not seen.
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