"saigon" poems
In nineteen hundred forty-nine
China was won by Mao Tse-tung
Chiang Kai-shek's army ran away
They were waiting there in Thailand yesterday
Supported by the CIA
Pushing junk down Thailand way
First they stole from the Meo Tribes
Up in the hills they started taking bribes
Then they sent their soldiers up to Shan
Collecting ***** to send to The Man
Pushing junk in Bangkok yesterday
Supported by the CIA
Brought their jam on mule trains down
To Chiang Rai that's a railroad town
Sold it next to the police chief brain
He took it to town on the choochoo train
Trafficking dope to Bangkok all day
Supported by the CIA
The policeman's name was Mr. Phao
He peddled dope grand scale and how
Chief of border customs paid
By Central Intelligence's U.S. A.I.D.
The whole operation, Newspapers say
Supported by the CIA
He got so sloppy & peddled so loose
He busted himself & cooked his own goose
Took the reward for an ***** load
Seizing his own haul which same he resold
Big time pusher for a decade turned grey
Working for the CIA
Touby Lyfong he worked for the French
A big fat man liked to dine & *****
Prince of the Meos he grew black mud
Till ***** flowed through the land like a flood
Communists came and chased the French away
So Touby took a job with the CIA
The whole operation fell in to chaos
Till U.S. Intelligence came into Laos
I'll tell you no lie I'm a true American
Our big pusher there was Phoumi Nosovan
All them Princes in a power play
But Phoumi was the man for the CIA
And his best friend General Vang Pao
Ran the Meo army like a sacred cow
Helicopter smugglers filled Long Cheng's bars
In Xieng Quang province on the Plain of Jars
It started in secret they were fighting yesterday
Clandestine secret army of the CIA
All through the Sixties the Dope flew free
Thru Tan Son Nhut Saigon to Marshal Ky
Air America followed through
Transporting confiture for President Thieu
All these Dealers were decades and yesterday
The Indochinese mob of the U.S. CIA
Operation Haylift Offisir Wm. Colby
Saw Marshal Ky fly ***** Mr. Mustard told me
Indochina desk he was Chief of ***** Tricks
"Hitchhiking" with dope pushers was how he got his fix
Subsidizing traffickers to drive the Reds away
Till Colby was the head of the CIA
January 1972
10.1k
The Viet Nam era was a witches brew.Mission creep in Saigon
The evening news brought the ****** trips stumbling into
my TV dinner, kicking over my Tang.
Bouncing Betty went bang
Beans and ***** out the can.
Guys in my age bracket knew it was safe cause 18 was the magic Number.
RESPECT
Simon and Garfunkel ,The godfather of soul.
What we.
Had Here.
Was.
Failure to Communicate.
We were reaching for the stars with one hand and
squeezing of rounds with the other. Bobby was in the crossfire
Martin would retire,
I remember.
Guys slinking back home with broken minds
Baby killers all. No love ,No jobs. COMBAT FATIGUE. PTSD Came later.
Got a monster habit, Nose running of like a racetrack rabbit.
Oh yeah Asian Strain Gonorrhea.
Penicillin
Penishmillin. WTF
Hendricks.
Sep 27, 2012
Sep 27, 2012 at 3:25 AM UTC
MEMORIAL DAY May 26th, 2014
****************************************************
To all of you that have ever worn "The Uniform",
the uniform of safety and security, the uniform of pride
the uniform of freedom, the uniform of liberty
THE UNIFORM OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
**********
THANK YOU
Thank you to all, in every branch, in every time From:
The American Revolution (most of us have roots to our founders)
The Civil War (North or South)
World War I
World War II
Korea
Vietnam
Cambodia
Laos
Panama
Nicaragua
The Falkland Islands
Somalia
Yugoslavia
Bosnia
Kuwait
Iraq
Afghanistan
Pakistan
The Persian Gulf
**
areas and battlefields such as
(not all locations are listed with no dis-respect)
Lexington/Concord, Gettysburg, Pearl Harbor, Midway Island, Normandy, D-Day, Berlin, Tripoli, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, The 38th Parallel, The Bay of Tonkin, Me Lei, Hanoi, The Hanoi Hilton, Saigon, The ** Chi Minh Trail, Baghdad, Kabul, Ground Zero Manhattan, Pentagon 9/11, a field near Shanksville PA.
and many many more,
you are all heroes and role models, not for a nation, for the world, not for American Patriots, for all humanity, not only on this Memorial Day, for all days and all days to come.
You are appreciated! because freedom has high costs and you pay the price for all of us.
******************************
Godspeed, safety and peace where ever you are.
Sincerely,
Warner C. Baxter Jr.
American Patriot
Scottsdale, AZ. U.S.A.
God bless America
May 25, 2014
May 25, 2014 at 12:44 PM UTC
Wimbledon’s playing on the TV in the living room. Dad and I are watching on the sofa.
In the kitchen, Mom cuts carrots and cucumbers with a long blade. She slices the vegetables one by one. Orange pieces. Green pieces.
I glance over Mom chops up the carrots and cucumbers without a cutting board, taking each long carrot and cucumber and slices it with precision, as though she’s a professional like the film with Natalie Portman and Jean Reno.
But she’s not a little girl and she’s not a Frenchman. She’s like a mix-in-between, like the asphalt in our driveway and the grass sprouting in between the cracks.
Dad is a computer engineer. He used to be an artist. Used to study technical drawing in a university in Saigon.
He met mom when he was working on a play. She was the lead actress. Shakespeare had said, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.”
He’s right, but right now I can’t tell what act I’m in. Dad focuses on the TV. Watches Federer and Djokovic, his eyes, darting from left to right like the mood of a young boy that crosses back and forth from light to dark, and back again.
Blade in hand, Mom makes longer and deeper cuts across the cucumber, cutting away the skin, leaving deep cuts in the vegetable. Dad turns his head towards her, his neck cracking like the forehand swung by Federer.
He clears his throat, softly, soft as gas leaking out from a stovetop from a studio apartment, like the scene in Fight Club, a match about to be struck.
Mom sets the blade down on the table, and bites her lip. Her nostrils flare. I press down on the couch arm, and stand up, my head bent, my eyes wandering to the doorway.
Apr 28, 2016
Apr 28, 2016 at 11:29 PM UTC
MEMORIAL DAY
June 1, 2015
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To all of you that have ever worn
"THE UNIFORM"
The Uniform of safety and security,
The Uniform of pride and liberty
THE UNIFORM OF FREEDOM
THE UNIFORM OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
THANK YOU
Thank you to all, in every branch, in every time From:
1776 - 2015
The American Revolution
The Civil War (North or South)
World War I
World War II
Korea
Vietnam
Cambodia
Laos
Panama
Nicaragua
The Falkland Islands
Somalia
Yugoslavia
Bosnia
Kuwait
Iraq
Afghanistan
Pakistan
The Persian Gulf
~~
War Zones and Battlefields, such as:
Lexington/Concord, Gettysburg, Pearl Harbor, Midway Island, Normandy, D-Day, Berlin, Tripoli, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, The 38th Parallel, The Bay of Tonkin, Me Lei, Hanoi, The Hanoi Hilton, Saigon, The ** Chi Minh Trail, Baghdad, Kabul, Ground Zero Manhattan, Pentagon 9/11, a field near Shanksville PA.
and many many more,
(not all locations are listed with no dis-respect)
You are all Heroes and Role Models,
not for a Nation, for A Peaceful Planet
not for Americans, for all Humanity,
not only today this Memorial Day,
for all days and all days to come.
You are appreciated! because freedom has high costs
and you pay the price for all of us.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Godspeed, safety and peace where ever you are.
Sincerely,
Warner C. Baxter Jr.
American Patriot
Scottsdale, AZ. U.S.A.
GOD BLESS AMERICA
Semper Vigilo
Jun 1, 2015
Jun 1, 2015 at 2:26 AM UTC
the air was thick and heavy
the sun was heating up the sky
And somewhere in the jungle
more men were gonna die
The streets were full of people
Feral dogs were running free
The haze was thick and murky
The sun you couldn't see
It's a Saigon Sunday Morning
Ten more men were going home
To a flag tri-corner folded
And a marker of white stone
The men were all assembled
To load them up with care
It was a Saigon Sunday Morning
with ten men no longer there
The jungle was a minefield
The trees were blocking out the light
It was ***** trapped like crazy
And it seemed like it was night
A patrol went hunting "Charlie"
But, they were found out first
It only took twelve seconds
And it turned out for the worst
The city never noticed
The 'copters flying overhead
Whether bringing in supplies
Or taking out the dead
It was a Saigon Sunday Morning
It never changed one little bit
The air was always heavy
And the alleys smelled like ****
Back home the news delivered
The families destroyed
They were waiting for their loved ones
A short time were deployed
Ribbons tied around the Oak Tree
to support those coming back
On a Saigon Sunday Morning
With twenty bullets in their back
A transport with the bodies
Drops fifty more to play the game
It's a vicious, endless, circle
The procedure's all the same
It's a Saigon Sunday Morning
Ten more men were going home
To a flag tri-corner folded
And a marker of white stone
Jul 20, 2016
Jul 20, 2016 at 11:07 AM UTC
For every aging boomer
there are one or two they've known:
Heroes of the battlefield
Who never made it home.
Some classmate who was butchered
in a fire fight in “Nam.
A sibling who had perished
in the standoff at Khe Sanh.
Perhaps the Tet offensive
left some friend's blood spilled and spent.
Politicians speak of glory-
It’s the grunts who pay the rent
From the walls of Hue to Can Ranh Bay
from Tonkin to Saigon.
there is a wall in Washington
with their names inscribed thereon.
The lucky ones who did come home
recall the name and face
of some heroic eighteen year old
who perished in their place.
Nov 22, 2011
Nov 22, 2011 at 4:51 PM UTC
Lawrence Hall
[email protected]
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
The Stupidest Metaphor
Do these camouflage knee-pantsies
make my 250-pound *** look too big?
He never formed up with a skirmish line
To **** and snoop to some distant trees
Across a death-hot field of weeds and mud
With some idiot yelling, “Dress it up!”
He never feared that a 40-mike-mike
Would blow his guts and spine into ****** rags
Which would get his air-conditioned C/O
In Saigon another medal and promotion
His PTSD is from watching TV
But he is pleased to claim that he is a
warrior
Dec 29, 2021
Dec 29, 2021 at 8:33 AM UTC
When you approached me,
I was smoking a cigarette
listening to Macklemore
outside my favorite coffeeshop
in the rainy city
You said something,
but I didn't hear you,
so I removed my headphones
as you asked
"Could you help a veteran out
by giving him a cigarette?"
I said yes,
asked you where you had fought
you told me Saigon
"Oh yeah? Vietnam."
you looked at me
dressed in a coat
that was a color of blue
not found in nature
face of canyons
and told me
"We got those ******* good.
We did.
We got those ******* good.
Don't let anyone tell you otherwise."
and you walked away.
I was stuck in a trance of
What the **** was that
and yeah,
we did get them
but I don't know if I'd lay down
Agent Orange
and call it "good"
Take Civil and Guerrilla warfare
and try to tie it next to butterflies
and welfare checks
I don't know
what you think is good
But me?
I can't find any other words
for 1.9 to 3.9 million casualties
in a war that should never have been fought
Than sad
and wrong
I wonder how many Vietnamese women
gave birth to half American babies
That they never wanted
that didn't even desire to participate
in the act
of child making
I wonder how many
Loved their children anyway
how many were honest with them
how many of those children burnt that odd color of blue
that should never exist in nature
But then again
neither should the bombs children are still unearthing
in the North
and South of Vietnam
I want to know how many of their parents
learned that American
is another word for a ************
How many of these parents
grew up telling their children
never trust an American
until you know where his gun is pointed
because he's always got it pointing somewhere
I want to know
If you would understand
where Saigon, now ** Chi Minh city
is on a map
if you had never fought there
Would you be on the streets of Portland
alone
asking a college kid
who was not alive
when you fought in Southeast Asia
for a cigarette
I wonder where are you going?
How many people did you ****
how many are you sorry
for killing?
and then I realize I really don't want to know.
Mar 19, 2012
Mar 19, 2012 at 12:43 AM UTC
Written by Arlo Guthrie and Pete Seeger; adapted by Mike Essig.
Halfway around the world tonight
In a strange and foreign land
A soldier packs his memories
As he leaves Afghanistan
And back home, they don't know too much
There was just no way to tell
You know you had to be there
To know that war was hell
And there won't be any victory parades
For those that's coming back
They'll fly them in at midnight
And unload the body sacks
And the living will be walking down
A long and lonely road
Because nobody seems to care these days
When a soldier makes it home
Somewhere in America tonight
In this strange and foreign land
A soldier unpacks memories
That he saved from Vietnam
They said it wasn't easy
Just another job, well done
*Then the government in Saigon fell
To the sounds of rebel guns*
And the faces of the comrades
Who were blown out of the sky
Leaves you bitter and disgusted
That they didn't have to die
*The old men who planned that war
You know they all died safe in bed
With none of their rich and privileged sons
Ending up torn or dead*
Back home they didn't know too much
There was just no way to tell
You know you had to be there
to know that war was hell
And there wasn't any big parades
For those that made it back
They flew them home in secret
and told them to make tracks
And the living were left walking down
A long and lonely road
Because nobody seemed to care back then
When a soldier made it home
The night is coming quickly
And the stars are on their way
As I stare into the evening
Looking for the words to say
That I saw the lonely soldier
Just a boy that's far from home
And I saw that I was just like him
While upon this earth I roam
And there may not be any big parades
If I ever make it back
As I come home under cover
To a world that can't keep track
Of the heroes who have fallen
Let alone the ones who roam
Guess that's why nobody seems to care
When a soldier makes it home
Aug 11, 2015
Aug 11, 2015 at 6:18 AM UTC
For every aging boomer
There are one or two they've known:
Heroes of the battlefield
Who never made it home.
Some classmate who was butchered
in a fire fight in “Nam.
A sibling who had perished
in the standoff at Khe Sanh.
Perhaps the Tet offensive
left some friend's blood spilled and spent.
Politicians speak of glory-
It’s the grunts who pay the rent
From the walls of Hue to Cam ranh Bay
from Tonkin to Saigon.
there is a wall in Washington
with their names inscribed thereon.
The lucky ones who did come home
Recall the name and face
of some heroic eighteen year old
who perished in their place.
May 23, 2013
May 23, 2013 at 9:52 PM UTC
Silently standing in formation as your feet are hanging overboard
A burial at sea is an honor and now it is your much deserved reward.
USS. Ships slowly coming to a halt many nautical miles off the coast
Today is a beautiful day and you’re the decorated remembered host.
As for him, when his ship rolled up upon Saigon's shore
he received many campaign stars for his chest while serving his tour.
Clanging medals as he still now walks all about and right from the start
He told me he was to fast to get caught and in return,
he smiled at me because he never did receive a purple heart.
The stars and stripes are now starting to swirl into one and another
contorting colors now begin to weep while flying at half-mast
Squeezing triggers the firing party’s rifle’s now begin to blast.
As you’re lying there peacefully and in your "Aurora" stainless steel bed
A special scripture is read and prayers are then said.
Tilting the platform so you slide off and fall into the deep ocean
with twenty holes two inch in diameter
and one hundred and fifty pound bags of sand hidden at your feet
when you get to the bottom, Davy Jones, you will then meet
till then you’re heading to the floor traveling there
like always, in slow motion.
(SirCARSr. 11-30-13)
Nov 30, 2013
Nov 30, 2013 at 11:51 AM UTC
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKPEOfybQak&feature;=related
*Remember his name when you look at the night sky.
- the Toe-cutter*
You are the Night Rider,
a fuel-injected suicide machine,
a rocker, a roller,
a no-controller,
yer a cop killer,
the mighty weird hand of vengeance
come to smite the un-roadworthy.
You, Night Rider,
clearly unaffected
by the state’s urgings
to “yield” and, perhaps,
“soft shoulder”.
You are the Night Rider,
sleeping in on a Tuesday,
performing your masculinity
in unshowered, unshaved machissmo.
Night Rider,
won’t you come to your senses?
Nobody enjoys maniacal laughter
anymore.
It makes us think of ****
covered in fleas, bedbugs,
whiskey ****
or Janis,
and the last moments of an American Saigon.
Ahh… Night Rider,
we share your machine lust,
your fetish,
your hard-on for the muscle-bitch,
the suped-up hot rod,
the last of the V-8 Interceptors
(1973 Australian Ford XB Falcon GT).
We, too, like a nitrous kit,
a roof and tail spoiler,
we likes our flat black:
………....................our murderous speed
………..........................has driven daddy to drinkin’.
We ride!
Night Rider, we understand.
We get the lurid infatuation,
but, **** yer a hick-weed,
all these roads lead to jail
–how have you not grasped this simple truth?
The highway is not freedom,
but a circular slave song.
Oh, rider of the night,
why all the re-runs of Seinfeld?
And cheese bread?
You’ve grown a belly, N.R.,
and while it might be glam
to be young, dumb
and full of ***
or all muscle
in butt-less chaps at 21,
you’re 45, Night Rider,
and no-one cares anymore
about your straight-line revolution,
about your road to freedom,
about it,
about what kind of future
you and Floosie would’a made.
The kids are alright
but
they ain’t never heard
of you
nor your last,
wild-eyed flight.
As the Lord Humungous has indicated,
no one
gets out
alive.
Jun 22, 2012
Jun 22, 2012 at 3:09 PM UTC
Back in the days of Vietnam
We said: “Make Love, not war.”
No matter how many Cong we killed
Like Doritos, they made more.
Walter Cronkite helped keep score
as the toll grew ever higher.
Foes relentless as the monsoon rains
They made Nam a quagmire.
We killed them all three times at least
Surely all of them were gone.
Then shortly after we had left
They turned up in Saigon!
Now we’re in a forever war
without a likely winner.
A pity we can claim a draw
And bring the boys home for dinner.
May 23, 2013
May 23, 2013 at 7:20 PM UTC
October 1968
Strange day away from a war,
in a bubble
with the liar who was my friend
who wore a shirt with
a combat aviation badge
a dead man had earned,
first stolen glory
I ever saw.
We are awol, but nobody knows,
then a doughy white guy with a camera,
asks the liar why we are
in Saigon,
at the zoo, in the middle of a war.
A Stars and Stripes reporter,
gathering
the opinion of warriors ( right, in Saigon) re
Jackie Kennedy marrying the Greek
He took our picture, asked our names,
we were awol,
but what the hell, how many losers
ever see their picture
in the Stars and Stripes?
Lesson
send a boy to fight a war,
never tell him who wins, if he lives.
As an old man,
like that tiger, in a cage,
not San Diego Zoo Eco-accurate Habitat,
a cage, concrete floor, old-time
cowboy movie jail barred
cage,
waiting,
like that tiger in the Saigon zoo, 1968.
Apr 5, 2019
Apr 5, 2019 at 1:49 PM UTC
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 son of a ***** 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 ass-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.
Jun 27, 2015
Jun 27, 2015 at 8:48 PM UTC
that summer, Born to Be Wild
and Mrs. Robinson were on AM,
A & W Drive Inns served frosted mugs
and Tet’s blood had not long dried black
on Saigon streets
my thumb took me from the green tipped tongue
of western Kentucky across the wide world
to a café in Santa Rosa, where I spent my last
eighty-five cents, on a tuna sandwich
and chips
a bus bench was waiting for me
when the cafe closed its doors
at 12:10, the old waitress giving me
a generous extra dime of time,
knowing I had to face the night
and the bench, or the New Mexico road
I chose the latter and headed south
under coal dark skies
only eighteen wheelers passed, their screaming lights
robbing me of what quiet vision night’s monotony had granted
they saw my thumb, but not one stopped; they did not know I had walked
a dozen dark dead miles, and had not closed my eyes in 60 hours
nor did they care, about me, or my shadow on Highway 54
I talked to pinyons, cedars that dotted the mesas
and moved about like mournful buffalo, stirred to life
by a sound or a scent, perhaps my own foul road bouquet,
though they were mute, even when I asked them
if I was seeing god in their measured marching
across my desert dream
long before
the dawn I begged to come
I saw him, dead center on my highway
so black he was blue, his eyes like two emeralds
hanging in some ethereal space, staring at me, the rest
of the absent world unaware he was there, growling
the rumble so low I tasted it, as he might taste me,
I felt our nostrils flair, as his would when
he devoured me, I saw the blood feast
through our eyes, the last morsel of me,
a pale art form on an asphalt palette
as he swallowed the last of his meal
the eighteen wheeler came, its high beams bouncing off him
only long enough for me to see his mouth was dry
and his belly empty, before he vanished
into the blue night
Apr 30, 2014
Apr 30, 2014 at 11:48 AM UTC
A caterpillar had the feeling
That change was coming
That time was stealing.
To embrace the metamorphosis
It wove a cocoon around its chest
And choose our wall to take its rest.
The young are thoughtless, often cruel
And I was no exception.
I would have destroyed it but
for Frankie’s intervention.
Frankie lived in the corner house
He was older and quite wise.
He taught me that this green cocoon
would change into a butterfly.
He bade me watch, he had me wait
to see the wonder taking shape.
We saw the Monarch first take wing
once caterpillar, now a King.
Several summers passed us by.
I still lived but Frankie died-
He was nineteen, Young and brave
A landmine put him in his grave.
He died just before Saigon’s fall
His name’s inscribed upon the Wall
Corporal Frank Evangelista Junior,
beloved by mother and mourned by sister.
He was too good, too young to die.
He would have been a butterfly.
Nov 22, 2011
Nov 22, 2011 at 5:11 PM UTC
While i was learning to savour the new taste of cashew and walnut in the autumn of that year
you were learning to eat the bones of your neighbours' dog as you fled from an earth gone moist
the leaves of war were torn from the jungle as a cavalry of shrapnel burnt away the air
you were learning to hold your breath while i was doing the same in a suburban swimming pool
when the dust of your family filled the lids of your eyes
being left to see for yourself held quite a different meaning
while your skin seared from the heat of warfire
i was feeling the warmth of a shopping centre in winter
when you went without feet, a landmine exploding your underneath world underneath
i sprained an ankle at basketball
the words of an american god spat forth from an automatic weapon
and you saw the tongues of the lamb inviting you to feast in a foreign language
and while i drew in crayon on the kindergarten wall
you were drawn in the crosshairs just before the smell of cordite
Jun 12, 2014
Jun 12, 2014 at 8:06 AM UTC
you were born in Denver
during a white out blizzard
like all round babes,
you had no clue, what was in store for you
you couldn't have known...
you would be
the last nickel to ***** through
a five-cent coin phone box,
in El Paso, Texas
or that you would sleep
for a year in a piggy bank,
of a boy named Felipe, who would die
of white blood cancer, before
he could spend you
and who would have thought
you would be in the linty pocket
of a serial murderer named Ray, when
he was captured in Santa Fe, a sunny day
on the ancient square, stalking
his next victim
a jailer used you that very night
with a twin of yours he found in
another picked pocket, of a drunk drifter,
to buy a Hershey's bar, from a machine
that would have taken a dime as well
your face began to show the fingered
signs of age by the time the choppers found sky
above the Saigon Embassy, where you had spent
an aching April night in the Ambassador's pants
when you turned a half century, you were tossed
into a gallon jug, e pluribus unum, no more special
than others a third your vintage
I finally met you today, only because chance landed you on
the top of the heap, waiting to be saved from further folly
Aug 27, 2016
Aug 27, 2016 at 11:39 AM UTC
Thu used to live in Saigon. When the war ended,
she had fallen in love with a boy who lived next door to her.
He was her first love. He would write love poems to her.
Sometimes they would hold hands.
Once they shared a kiss.
They were young and deeply in love.
But as the war finished, they moved on from each other.
The boy went to live with his family in Australia, while she moved to America.
After they broke up, Thu would still think about him.
He was the one who dumped her.
The breakup crushed her heart.
But she didn’t let it mar her dignity.
Time passed, Thu moved to Virginia
and she went to high school in Fairfax County.
The letters started pouring in from the boy.
But she had too much pride and she didn’t respond until one day.
That was the day that John Lennon was murdered
in cold blood.
She was heartbroken like every other person in the world.
Yet, she also thought of the boy and how much he loved John Lennon.
Thu remembers reading the newspaper, seeing John Lennon’s face
on the front page of the paper.
She took a pair of scissors
and cut a square around John’s face.
Then she wrote a letter to the boy.
And then she sealed the newspaper clipping and the letter in an envelope.
Begged her mom over the phone to send the letter to the boy.
Her mom was still in Saigon and somehow she made contact with the boy.
And she gave the letter to him.
A month later, she opened the mail and there was a letter from the boy.
She read the letter, stifled a cry, and then proceeded to write.
The next day she sent the letter.
Thu was happy to read his words.
It was as though she could hear his voice through his sentences.
Like he was there next to her, looking at her,
speaking to her spirit.
Days passed.
Weeks passed.
And then after a month, she realized he wasn’t going to respond back to her letter.
She couldn’t believe that he didn’t give her a response.
“And that’s the end of the story,” Thu said to her son.
“What do you mean that’s the end of the story? That can’t be the end!”
“Well you’re the writer, right? Think of an ending.”
May 8, 2017
May 8, 2017 at 2:41 PM UTC
Young men
take their
hot pics for
a quick fix,
I mix my drink with soda
loada
******* really.
Seal me with cellophane
don't let me be so vain
I am not young
anymore.
I captured it all in
the fall of Saigon
I dreamt of it down
in Hanoi.
This thousand yard stare
looks at me
from
over there
and
everywhere
else that I see.
Shoot me full of ******
fire on me and
I'll go back in
to the storm
that I once called
my
youth.
May 8, 2016
May 8, 2016 at 4:00 PM UTC
At home presents are wrapped
Drinking eggnog and spreading cheer.
Got the tree all lit up
It is that time of year.
Toys for Jim and Mary
Robes for mom and dad,
Don't forget Aunt Betty,
It is that time of year.
The house is full of joy,
The're parties everywhere.
The kids are so excited,
It is that time of year.
Say a prayer for Tommy,
He's in Viet Nam this year.
Come on in neighbors,
Let's have a drink of cheer.
There's one more present coming
I helped to fill the body bag.
We shipped it from Saigon,
It is that time of year.
Merry Christmas
Oct 10, 2013
Oct 10, 2013 at 4:13 PM UTC
Revealed, the boots rest in bittersweet calm.
The laces fray and choke a lonely moth
whose wings are sliced and cast into the dust.
The leather decays and its dye fades to
the equal of pigments of ashen flesh.
Nothing stirs.
The boots stand at attention against scratched
records, silent since American Pie.
They bend the picture of that girl from a
dreamer’s days, oh summer of ‘69.
All tarnished, as the ‘Nam dust settles on
failing dreams.
These boots had sat in front of Saigon’s door.
These boots had been stained with the “world of war”:
with the colorful hues of long-gone friends,
with a son who never had the chance to
kiss his mom, his dad, his dog, his simple
life goodbye.
These boots carried a wasted soul, Saigon’s
pesky tricks lasting longer than prayers do.
Wasted time, wasted mind, wasted, wasted -
as the world tries to truly understand
the feelings of a place called Vee-it-Nam.
So it is.
The boots sit on ‘Nam’s thick dust, laying in
a closet of tormented memory.
For a man may walk on without his boots.
But he cannot rub away the imprint
of his feet,
nor the heavy steps that he has taken.
Feb 22, 2013
Feb 22, 2013 at 10:56 AM UTC