Let’s face it:
Vietnam was a purge.
An undeclared yet official
War on largely Black, Chicano,
Mostly urban, poor White-trash--
Any of that unlucky-cohort--
Coming of age, mid-60s America.
A purge yes, but 'Nam was also an
Intelligence Test:  them that went,
Particularly those who never returned,
Those scoring at least two standard deviations out,
Outside normal, therefore inferior genetic make-up,
Those the country could surely do without.
“Three Generations of Imbeciles Are Enough.”
www.genomicslawreport.com /.../three-generations-of-imbeciles-are-enough... So wrote Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. in Buck v. Bell, a 1927 Supreme Court case upholding a Virginia law that authorized the state to...”
I couldn’t have said it better, Justice Holmes!
The Nam: those of us who did survive were
Nonetheless, mangled and traumatized,
In both body & spirit.
We knew right away we’d been duped,
Particularly those gun-friendly southern boys,
Hunting ***** for sport and Country, now contemplating
Remorseful acts of mass homicide 40 years ago.
The real poindexters of our generation, of course:
Got a medical deferment, or
Stayed in college, or
Went north to Canada, or
As I did, joined the Coast Guard, unfortunately,
In addition to my nightmare Indochine,
My personal Disneyland Jungle Cruise,
Based on Joseph Conrad’s
Congo Nightmare Novella--
Heart of Darkness.)
And Józef wrote it in English.
Which was for the native Pollack,
His third language after Polish & French,
Which is probably a good time to
Encourage each & every young punk
On the cellblock to make good use of their time:
Learn a foreign language., e.g.
Why not Spanish?
Given Obama’s farcical, unrestricted border policy.
Soon to be a pervasive lingua Esperanto.

My politics? Sign me up for a little T.A.D.,
Manning a 50-caliber machine gun on Donald’s Wall.
Donald Trump:  A Modern Hadrian?
Don’t get me started on politics.
Take a Spanish class.
Finally, you’ll know what those
Grease-ball Mexican landscapers are
Saying behind your back, right in front of you.

After the Army, & after college on the G.I. Bill,
That’s when I joined the Coast Guard.
OCS in the 1970s was a difficult (read:
Lower Standards) recruiting time for
The Armed Forces of the United States,
Including the U.S. Coast Guard.
OCS: The Oklahoma Cook School we joked.
Officer Candidate School: graduating
Nautically savvy 90-Day Wonders,
Inculcated with conduct becoming &
Other archaic, chivalrous values,
Imprinted with Chain of Command obeisance,
Etched deep an acolyte’s primer on class-consciousness.
Blimey! What a difference after my previous
Two years stint as an Army grunt which leads me to
An overwhelming question: Why do Officers live
Better than enlisted pukes?
The Military: last refuge for scoundrels,
Escape artists & last bastion of medieval feudalism.
Officers! Welcome to the Aristocracy.
Mazel Tov,
Bienvenidos!
It's the Class Structure,
The dominant organizing principle for humanity,
Since the dawn of human history, perhaps longer,
Consider, if you will, “Alley Oop.”
“Alley Oop” Lyrics | MetroLyrics: (www.metrolyrics.com) “There's a man in the funny papers we all know . . . Eats nothin' but bearcat stew, A mean motor scooter & a bad go-getter . . . King of the jungle jive.”
Even longer if we go troglodyte era,
Some mean-mother, some swinging
Foucault’s pendulum set of *****,
Some club-wielding Duke of Earl—
Simply put: some Alpha Male,
Sticking it up whatever polygamous
Multiple Missus *** just happened to be
Bending over within my field of vision at
Any given moment.
I am the block’s biggest, baddest, meanest cat,
Made right by might: physical power &
Will to use it.

Then came Divine Right: Dieu et mon droit.
French for “God and my right.”
Conceived by the shrewd ones,
Those staying out of trouble,
Cringing in the corner of the cave, AKA
The inherently weak, concluding, at last, with
Marx: “The history of all hitherto existing
Society is the history of class struggles.”

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                    I­ndochine - An Anniversary of Sorts

On the 26th of October 1970 I returned from 18th months in Viet-Nam and a brief side-trip into Cambodia. I was literally just a boy off the farm when I went, and was still quite young when I wrote the following artless lines, with their conventional allusions, forced rhymes, and usage errors, on the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th anniversaries. Perhaps there is one from the 1st anniversary, but I can’t find it. Well, we are all are looking for something most days: a poem, truth, meaning, or some other trifle.


…the war – the frights…the smell of h.e., the horribly smashed men still moving like half-crushed beetles, the…corpses…all this shows rarely and faintly in memory…and often seems to have happened to someone else.

        -C. S. Lewis, “Guns and Good Company,” Surprised by Joy


                                        26 October 1972

The pecans are falling now
Onto the court-house lawn
Geese fly overhead, southbound
Misty dusk and chilly dawn

Two year from Viet-Nam
Two eternities from the Vam Co Tay
Elections now, and speeches
And I guess I’ll have my say

But the finality briefly denied me
Found many another man
And they’re not here for elections
And Autumn on the land

                                            26 October 1973

I sit and smoke my pipe and think
Of things that I have seen
Easter seals and steering wheels
And jungle hot and green

I sit and smoke my pipe and ponder
The imponderable of God and man
The evening star over a flare-lit war
And souls as grains of sand

I sit and smoke my pipe and mourn
For the murdered

Many miles, and three years today
From the muddy, ****** waters
Of the Vam Co Tay

                                         26 October 1974

Many miles
And four years today
From the muddy, ****** waters
Of the Vam Co Tay

All the death-hurt eases
And dreams are quieter now
But the hurting never ceases
And I can’t see when it will, or how

Four Octobers
Four Autumns today
From rain drizzling on the slimy banks
Of the Van Co Tay

“Go and make the world safe for democracy –
Like we did in 1917,” my aged ancestor said
Dear old man, he never lived to know
That sort of thing is dead

Grim memories
Of flare-lit nights and steaming days
Of men dying screaming
On the Vam Co Tay

The finality briefly denied me
Found many another man
And they’re not seeing the wild geese flying
Or Autumn on the land

Many miles
And four years today
From the muddy, ****** waters
Of the Vam Co Tay

I have long sought quiet.
And please, let me be clear: quiet.
Not the quietus Hamlet desired,
No “consummation devoutly to be wished” for me.
No, with or without a bare bayonet,
UNBEINGNESS is hardly what I seek.
It is not the predicament of death,
But the quiet spectacle of the grave I envy.  
Originally a city mouse,
I am familiar with the urban soundscape.
I know city noise, amped up in decibels.
Noise-induced stress, shrill and enervating,
Add to the mix a working-class neighborhood,
Where someone is always hammering,
Using a power tool of some kind,
Repairing, improving an older, somewhat decrepit home;
But a steal as the realtors say.
Or vehicles, like Old Havana relics,
Held together by secular prayer,
And thriving underground Cuban capitalism.
Then just for fun: "Let’s send the ******* to war."
Tympanic membranes be wary and be ******.
Stretched and perforated,
Compressed and torn,
Shredded like wheat.
Pummeled by shock wave.
I was Lear wandering the heath,
Your ***-cheeks cracked:
“Cataracts and hurricanes . . .
Oak-cleaving thunderbolts . . .
Sulphurour and thought-executing fires . . .
Singe my white head!”
Cue Cabaret music (Cabaret (1972) - IMDb www.imdb.com/title/tt0068327): “Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome . . . to Indochine,”
First a Weimar-Saigon suckee-fuckee,
Then out to The ****,
Mind-numbing concussion,
Reek of jellied gasoline,
Charred meat,
Assorted red entrails,
Obliteration of thought complete.

« J’ai demandé à la lune,
Si tu voulais encore de moi.
Elle m’a dit : j’ai pas l’habitude
De m’occuper des cas comme ça...
Et toi et moi,
On était tellement sûre
Qu’on se disait même quelque fois
Que c’était juste une aventure
Et que ça ne durerai pas »

#Indochine