Rain plummeting
like rivets.

Seated in the mud,
soaked beyond notice,
beside a fried APC hulk,
eating cold C-Rations
with my ***** fingers.

Eyes like vacant windows.

This photograph
can never fade.

  mce

The sky was appropriately the color of gun metal. The smell of cordite clung like rancid perfume. He inhaled. It wasn't much to look at. Not so much a field as a clearing. A patch of nothing blasted onto the hilltop by the exhalation of a few 500 pound bombs. The earth was loose; plowed by mortars and cultivated by machine guns. A place men would have to cross under fire without cover; a place where men would be harvested. Not completely, though. It had been awhile. Some vegetation had encroached. Here and there it smoldered. The jungle never slept. Like the enemy, it kept coming back. There were lumps strewn about at random. Large lumps, the bodies of the dead. Smaller lumps, pieces of them. Dragon's teeth, clumsily sown. At first light the grunts had gone out and executed the wounded, laughing as they blew their brains out. He didn't blame them. Mercy was absurd in war; only death was logical. The bodies would be left to caution the enemy. It wouldn't help, though. They would return. Like the jungle. Until it was theirs for good. The first result would be stench; the second, compost. When the jungle finally returned, where the lumps were would be just a little greener. That a man's death might produce so little. He took it all in one last time. So this is what a battlefield looks like. *******.
  - mce

there is a quick energy here
the scooters flow without caution
traffic courses like a delta
changing, dynamic in every moment

a city in the wake of pain
constructing, making anew
the streets are wet and *****
yet every bush is neatly trimmed

Remember that day we glided along rice fields,
me and you lagging at the back,
while the 12 of us pedaled bicycles?

The clouds drooled down daylight,
and I was feeling lonely and crap.
You glanced back on the road and waited. "You alright?"

your eyes said.
And we chatted about our problems, time chopping away on an x-asis,
as we passed fields, motorbikes, and watersheds.

Those shared moments every day
with you, our friends, and our Vietnamese teaching staff,
it aligned my universe like a human astrolabe.

I'm so glad our group traveled across the world,
riding bikes and drinking beer unbounded by maps.
It ***** being home now, far away. I miss you and I'm always bored.