How can I ever explain it?
Not without a full disclosure
I will tell you every bit
Your kindness to which I demure

Soldiers fight their own private war
Mine to protect the Hill Tribes
Willing to suffer all the gore
All credit to them I ascribe

Upon arrival in Da Nang
I gathered my field gear and rifle
A mission with Colonel Vang
Preparation seemed but a trifle

My kind mountain Hmong Tribal ladies
Give a great gift to me, your sons
I will escort them through Hades
I'll teach them to ****** with guns

Wet their tongues in cobra's blood
I have come to save you from doom
The coming communist red flood
Boys already made their own tomb

We shall fly the flags of the Hmong
We'll rally boys from the villes
We must slaughter the Minh and Cong
The Hmong will have their own Bastille

I will take a dragon to wife
Boys will nurture in her foul breath
They will worship their ****** knife
We'll dance the ritual of death

I’m the lost soul forest monster
Others have come before today
They are pathetic impostors
We will flow through the night to slay

Other boys born beneath the palm
They have come to steal your life's breath
It's them that we target to bomb
I'll walk among you as Macbeth

My Duncan is among your kin
Banquo will haunt me til I rot
I will be fixed with mortal sin
Unable to wash away the spot

I will hide my hands from Odin
A conundrum in which I'm caught
Future will be among the Jinn
My destiny from this foul plot

Your sons buried in sacred ground
They'll not be stained with my darkness
Peace for them will be so profound
How many thanks can I express

Those boys in valor's selfless crown
From gallantry, their future gone
Sins I keep and can't beat down
For many years, I must atone.

I, far removed from battles roar
Do fondly remember those boys
Their smiles and laughter before
Stand out among life's greatest joys

No more the fierce warrior am I
Just an old man with memories
I am needing to just say goodbye
And maybe, maybe my conscience appeases

Wandering the wild shore among the dunes
The sunset colored the peaks in glowing gold
In the shaded purple folds, gray gnarled driftwood was strewn
In anticipation of the moon I strolled

I love the cold white light of a waxing moon
A heavenly body my path to unfold
To illuminate foot prints where they were strewn
Alone with dunes and beach by me patrolled

From atop the sand dune a moonlit lagoon
The V shaped ripples from water fowl, look, behold
The surface like molten glass behind the loons
Man, cannot dominate that which I behold

The little girl danced
she took the stage
and she danced
She learned all the positions
one by one
The steps and moves
came naturally
she danced
Her heart and soul
on stage
on display
Music drove her
force of vitality
It was ardor
it was desire
she danced
Among her in-crowd
she was sweet but shy
A goodie two shoes
quiet and meek as a mouse
A scholar a
an unflagging student
Whenever she was sad
she danced
Whenever she was happy
She danced
When it was sunny
She danced
When she fell in love
She danced
She flew from
toe to toe
When she had children
She danced
When she had grandchildren
She danced
Across the tapestry
Of life
She danced
When the banshee howled
She danced

It is so cold and dark as gloom
I'm on the floor hog-tied and bound
The door is locked to my new room
I don't know if I will be found

I'm on the far side of the moon
Deep silence I can't hear a sound
I really thought I was immune
Even though no one was around

I think maybe it was about noon
I saw you two and my heart drowned
You were hand in hand love abloom
How on Earth could I have been clowned

My hand to my hip then the boom
You lay bleeding on the hard ground
Caught within the web of your loom
Grief and misery both abound

Tour song of love was out of tune
I weigh treachery by the pound
My heart break to you I impugn
My once kind smiling face has frowned

Horrid deeds drop me in a swoon
The gravity does me astound
You will be buried this afternoon
A grave and tomb will you impound

The green-eyed monster sealed my doom
But why, why did you so confound
A love, a life so opportune
My feelings for you so profound

A cuckold pathetic buffoon
Alas no peace have I found
Here on the far side of the moon
Here on the floor hogtied and bound
You lay bleeding on the hard ground
Caught within the web of your loom

It wasn't exactly a date
It was a lot more like fate
She was sitting on the gate

She had such a purty face
She'd look good in boots and lace
She was all beauty and grace

I sauntered up special like
I was more than a little tyke
I asked her to take a hike

We wandered to my fine mare
I felt like a millionaire
She chatted without a single care

She rubbed on that silky mane
Her name was Dorothy Jane
To hold her hand, my campaign

Her hand so sweet and so fine
Fit exactly into mine
My first date was so sublime

As time on the clock face ticks
I still remember the kicks
Even though I was just six

weeping willows dangling their thin
lithesome leafed branches curved in
genuflection caressing the  
surface of  life giver Aqua  
as if the brimming pool perhaps
a creation of its own weeping
from leaf through root to leaf seeping
age old unbroken circle of life
memory of fingertips rife
trailing ripples that won't collapse
Gently did I scull the rented skiff
disheartened grief stricken and stiff
opposing tomorrow's defeat
my heart heavy struggling to beat
as if lead had bound it in straps
already my mind's in sorrow
seeing my sadness on the morrow
the Greyhound bus diminishes
until it slowly vanishes
leaving me standing with our scraps
of long hot steamy summer nights
holding to each other despite
the sweat that passion delivers
though in August's heat we shiver
cold promenades, foggy wraps
through damp dense swirling wraiths we tail
pretending to be on the trail
of Jack the Ripper in our hood
the hammered trilling of our blood
when passion and play overlap
last spring your pirouettes in flowers
demanding all of my powers
to not burst in flames of lust
my love for you just that robust
you kept your feelings under wraps
how could our sweet love have come to
I need to get away from you
a cheap bus ticket to "the Bay"
is now an entire world away.

I have been stabbed with a knife
With scissors by my ex-wife

I've been beaten ******
***** ****** and muddy

I've been jilted and cheated upon
Kept awake for many a dawn

Tortured and then thrown in a pit
But never tempted to say "I quit"

It is discipline of the mind
The world is going to be unkind

I know it isn't easy for some
When all thoughts are dreary and glum

But you and only you define
Your future is yours to design

The sun sinks lower in the west where it has set the sea afire
Standing on the beach we, with baited breath to see the glorious green flash
The phantom phenomenon lives for one magical moment
Why is it that we, all of us, want to see that which will inspire?
Dipping feather quill shed from a seagull in ink I make my slash
Furiously writing and dipping until my pensive mood is spent
Sitting in darkness, pensivity gives way to discontent
Ghostly presence or absence of you.  I'm haunted by your urn of ash
I wouldn't need a summer day one last dance is all I dare require

a covey small tan and brown feathered avian sprites
in brittle grass on desiccated hills hidden in plain sight
perching still as death will my close presence them excite
do they sense the ending that will mark their panicked fright?
I'll move they'll billow forth in the vagaries of flight
fluttering trajectory will intersect my sights
wild beauty convoluted billowing feathers ignite
ending in a tumbling stumbling failure of their flight
their camouflage plumage flecked with stains of crimson light
do they regret never seeing their progeny's delight?
do they feel a longing for more than is their right?
they will provide a meal for my family tonight

A form letter delivered by a Colonel's wife
She climbed the front porch steps on a beautiful spring day
The letter she handed me would forever change my life
What had been a gorgeous blue sky turned dingy and gray
My remembering our sweet life cuts me like a knife
The news that my best friend was never going to return
I was too shocked to cry or to react in any way
I carried the crumpled letter all day it made my eyes burn
Friends kept coming with casseroles and some bouquets
Is this table full of food and flowers what your life earns?
I am staring at your photograph on the buffet
I have so much to do when they bring what was you  
Oh, how I wish I could make it all just go away
Planning a funeral my best friend to bid adieu
I don't know where your earthly remains will come to lay
This is not something I ever thought I would do
When we used to meet after class at that tiny cafe
Why did we delay our decision to have a child?
I'll need something to hold as your face fades away
You were my great hero so passionate and so wild
I'll always agnosco veteris vestigia flammae
I loved how you stood face to face with horror and smiled
I must face my losses I can no longer delay
I do not know what I'll miss the most you or our life

In an affair of infatuation
that happened to me in high school.
She was heartbroken and told everyone.
Then I became the fool

Yeah it was me

I wanted to taste a big chunk of life
At 17 I did not want a wife
She held my hand, she kissed my lips
She told me when she does her heart skips

We couldn't agree

Despite the feeling of egregious lust
This was not a relationship I could trust
She told me she lies awake and thinks of me
To satisfy my ****** lust how easy could this be?

I feared entrapment

Her smooth skin and pretty face
Was it worth the price of self-disgrace
In class, she never took her eyes from me
I was not overjoyed with glee

A clinging vine

Although her company was great at first
For entangling vines, I did not thirst
She demanded my 24/7 attention
To escape her, I earned detention

Obsession or Possession

Her professions of love and eternal possession?
Without my kiss, she'd have depression
She'd call me at all hours of night
And not hang up until daylight?


Hostage to her needs

I started to get concerned and did not call
Or I'd not show at her place at all
She threatened all sort of self-harm?
Once she had even cut her arm.?

What do I get that remains me

She didn't know love from manipulation
How could I have loved self-mutilation?
This was changing from crush simple and sweet
To a horror from which I wanted to retreat.

Sometimes it is greener

I pulled the plug and sought greener pastures
I wasn't kidding this was not empty gesture
This was nothing like love and more like a hi-jack
All I was doing was taking my life back

I am the soiled dove
Often used never loved
beginning from a tender age
I'd nothing else by which to gage
the aim and purpose of all the flatter
Love I thought was the heart of the matter
convinced myself heaven above
forgave this emotional love
let him control my life
thought I would be his wife
At a hundred parties, we'd attend
He loaned me out to all his friends
He told me this was proof that I loved him
Finally, I realized this life so grim
I used my body to gain love
it came like a bolt from above
I was just an object
treated with gross disrespect
****'m and the horse he rode in on
I'm taking back my pudendum
self-respect and declaring me myself
putting your love and ******* on a shelf
I'll **** you if you ever touch me again

The cloak of loneliness which you wear
Portends of drama, death, darkness, despair
You molt indigo shades of deep blue
Just to be near you is to invite ague
Your emptiness comes as no surprise
Why do you feel so smug as you despise
Anyone who tries to peek past your dark mood
The sun shines even though you exclude
Possible types of rational relief
You wallow in your irrational grief
Do you think the sun will no longer rise
Because pitiful tears will cloud your eyes
I cannot live in your world that's so blue
But I don't want to go on without you

A mirage by night
It's unheard of right?
Deep blue velvet folds
Twinkling with sequins
Visions to behold
A mysterious sight
Appeared my delight
In gossamer gown
Cobwebs falling down?
An apparition
Brought from beyond this life?
spectral cognition
Has she brought me down
I meant her to drown
I saw the vile kiss
Pain and disbelief
I knew naught amiss
Not played for a clown
I left her face down
Mirage it must be
A phantom for me?
I saw in the tomb
I could see her corpse
Flowers all round strewn
From my beloved Aimee
In guilt I must flee