What is Fail-Safe? (a Poem by Samantha Colandrea)

.
.
What does "fail-safe" even stand for?
To make sure everything goes right?
Is it to make sure in the worst situation?
That the plane will still take flight?
.
It began when a plane was spotted from Europe
The SAC declared it as a possible threat
But they are not allowed to proceed without orders
So they left it alone without fret
.
The SAC declared for an attack code
They created a bomber group made up of six
The orders are misunderstood because of the radar
And now it is too late for a fix
.
The thought of nuclear war
Causes Colonel to send out the crew
The six flights go toward Moscow
He did not know what else to do
.
Groteschele makes the suggestion
That the U.S. should begin
An attack to make the Soviets
Surrender and give in.
.
They made the attack look accidental
This was actually pretty cruel
Except they didn't think it through
And ran out of gas and fuel.

All six flights went down
And landed them in the sea
The pilots were all dead
And the other plane went free.

The Soviets make an agreement
With the President of the U.S.
They decline his request at first
But ended up saying yes.

The air defense shoots down two
Of the six planes unarmed
But the sixth plane should be left alone
Because it will do no harm.

Because of another disagreement
The sixth plane gets attacked
This was a mistake
That they weren't able to take back.

The President tries to tell Grady
That there is no war going on
Grady doesn't believe him
And sees it as a con.

They sent a plane to Moscow
To destroy the city for the "good"
Except this causes a bombing on New York
The Soviets would do what they could.

The moral of these attacks
Is that war is not worth fighting
It causes all the authorities to argue
When we all should be uniting.

(Samantha Colandrea responded to the book and film Fail-Safe by writing a poem about it.)

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LIT160 Introduction to Literature, Fall 2007

Published with author's permission.