"tet" poems
1968 I remember 1968..
The land of milk and honey.
The war was still cold but not
The Tet. That ***** was hot.
1954 I made my debut. Lotta my boys did too.
** chi Minh amped up his crew.
Can't. We all just get along.
No way LBJ. Young guys all over town stressin the lottery.
The randomness of body bag.
Friday hip deep in rice paddy.
Monday a letter to your moms.
Sep 25, 2012
Sep 25, 2012 at 2:16 PM 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
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
Summer in Bermuda, licker could be nice
An over dramatic garden
on a phosphorescent football.
There's a stream running through,
In translucent yellow.
Fertile with life passing by.
This thing inside me, this army of strife,
Is soldiering around me against the malitia of life.
I'm passing by with a strong gain of muster,
Treading through the garden with childlike guster.
Smoke another cigerrette, dream of watching four tet.
Guess you could call this the calm before the storm.
May 23, 2016
May 23, 2016 at 6:00 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
You walk a lonely path old man but now and then you show us
you're alive
And maybe when you've had a few you'll shed a sorry tear or two.
That's fine.
But if you really must insist on dredging up this ****
Each and every time.
As each new fact's learned don't mistake horror for concern.
Cos it's a lie.
I'm happy. My eyes are dry.
I can't feel pity looking in your killer's eyes.
So chin up son, don't you cry.
The things you did were unforgivable and I'll never sympathise.
Lying just beneath the skin there hides a multitude of sins
That wait
For a ear that doesn't sneer or recoil sickened
Cos they can't relate.
Seize any opportunity; for you've so many agonies
to share,
To unload your woes but that cross you built
is yours alone to bear.
Each sacred tet-a-tet where you might vocalise regrets
makes you renewed,
But don't forget that as they peer at you it's one-way glass
their peering through.
You look through misty eyes - your little heart is opened wide,
but their's are shut.
They can't return your gaze of hopelessness and shame,
They've heard enough.
If I thought there was an afterlife
I'd be concerned for what's coming your way
And whilst I don't believe in evil
You and him came pretty close I'd say
You can repent until your spent or
Flagellate your sorry self to death.
But if your just trying ro tell the world your sorry
Well, you can save your breath.
Leave flowers on his grave and promise that you'll never
misbehave again
Curse the wicked heart god gave you -
If you had the chance you do it all the same.
Mount another charm offensive
Show them all the side they think you lack
But know that no amount of
Humility will ever bring him back.
Oct 9, 2014
Oct 9, 2014 at 7:51 AM UTC
He was That Guy in high school.
You know who I mean, That Guy
who scored the winning touchdown,
who won a National Merit Scholarship,
who got accepted at Yale and Princetown,
who made everything look so easy,
Who was voted best looking,
most likely to succeed, most athletic,
who got blow jobs from grateful cheerleaders
and even ****** Mademoiselle Marsh
the **** French teacher as a senior
the day he gave the valedictory speech.
Everybody knows some Guy like That.
He is the Golden Guy who will never rust.
Only This Guy made an honest error.
The country at war, he felt his duty
and joined the Marine Corps in 1967.
He left a leg at Hue during Tet
and won a bunch of medals, but
a very Different Guy came home.
Yale and Princetown were ghosts.
He rented a room and tended bar
and he could hop those drinks
faster than anyone else,
but mostly he sat in his room,
saw and spoke to no one,
spinning reruns in his head
and drank and drank and drank
until someone discovered him dead.
Twenty-four and game over.
Sure, you knew That Guy.
Sep 3, 2015
Sep 3, 2015 at 9:18 PM UTC
In the field
where roses sing
a lonely man approaches.
His face is haggard,
stained and scarred
yet strong as he encroaches.
He won't stop
to think of rest
though long his quest has taken.
His ka-tet broken
friends all dead
yet his resolve's not shaken.
He goes up
the ancient steps
and sees his precious moments.
Why does he smell
sweet alkali?
Is this a form of torment?
Thirty-eight
he sees his love,
sweet Susan dead from fire.
Oh Char-you tree!
He feels such guilt
but keeps climbing the spire.
Up he goes.
He ponders this:
Mayhap it goes forever?
But, no. It can't!
His life is long,
but not that long, however.
To the top
where one last door
with ROLAND on the surface
does call to him
and begs him come,
for was this not his purpose?
There engraved
upon the ****
the guns his father gave him
wrapped in a rose.
But they are gone.
No, even they won't save him.
Past the door
the hot Mohaine
and alkali await him.
He begs mercy
but ka has none.
The Tower it did bait him.
Roland, he
begins anew
and remembers not a thing.
He marches on,
the Tower waits
among where roses sing.
Jun 5, 2014
Jun 5, 2014 at 1:00 AM UTC
And she knew that she would be okay. So she didn'tet her life waste away,cause she knew this is what it takes.
Aug 14, 2015
Aug 14, 2015 at 2:27 PM UTC
So yes he left us
Left this life on earth
Marking his completion
A circle of human life: being born and death
I met him in his
Thirties , young ; yet, not that sweet
I met him in his
Early mid-life crisis (?)
Returned home from his
Years serving Military service
There, he found two kids
And their iron lady-in-chief
Struggling with life to feed
the two little birds
All he wanted is
Stay home and be their dad
And that’s how we grew up
Having sweetest, most kind-hearted, loving dad
And an opposite : iron , nothing can break , lady of our place.
It’s said, you know, daughter is daddy’s past life love
The bond between us
Was instant and ferocious
He hold me tight in my burning feverishness
He braided my hair from my early years
Till I went to college
He made me those most beautiful artworks
For my school homework
He was my hero, was everything I wish
For my future man to be
Life then parted us
as I wanted to leave
As far as I can, from their protective fondness
I detached myself, stopped having them
As a important factor of my life
“cause deep down I know they would do everything
To steal me back and shape me to their “ideal” happiness
We struggled as we grow
Life got us back together sooner than I know
And in its most devilish method
Three women crying next to his dying bed
“Is there anything you wanna leave?
For your daughters as their inherit?”
“I have nothing to give” exclaimed him through a soft breath
We burst out crying as we said
“Daddy you gave us all your life
How can we ask for more, please rest in the light
Of inseparable love , we promise”
So here we are, this is the first TET
We would undergo, without your exist
Wherever you are now, my dearest dad
Lets celebrate this incredible fate
Of having each other , of sharing life-long companionship.
Apr 28, 2020
Apr 28, 2020 at 4:04 AM UTC
What an Auspicious night my friends,
What a day in fact,
What a life
What a reflecting Knife,
What with it’s ticker-tack bindings taught with rife,
Yes with the moon’s self served cursed light
That’s right down into my very soul
The pull of which yearns evermore for yet
Another empty ***** and tet-tet
It gets what it rents, it bleeds what it brecks,
It feeds what it mets, is leads where it regrets
Oh yes my friends
Oh yes
What an auspicious night
What a day in fact
What a death
And you wake up alone
In the village you built years ago
Not as you as you are
But you as as you were
Or some oft changed memory of, like soft spun tar
Molded shaped and bent,
Broken in fact by the ravages and scars,
Of nothing, of no one, of nobody,
Of everything, of everyone, of ever body,
All humans, all animals, all life
No people, no beasts, no strife
The cold carcass of the molten sun
The future the past of another man’s son,
What does it mean, what does it mean,
You turn your head in the village
But every stone is me
The night ends to the rise
Of not a start but a doom
Luck is gone Love was a chemistry
Engineered and now revereried
Lipple lap the gods they laugh
As the dice has been cast low and strung
Aye further now you’ve fallen but higher you have come
You split yourself in pieces unbeknownst to anyone
Even your own mind unwitting to the deception
As the chortles bortle onwards ad nauseum
This prophecy disintegrating as it goes on
What is left what is left
You sat there alone for years stuck
This is just the price to pay
For the dam of time to unbrook
What an auspicious night my friends
In fact
What a day
In fact
Apr 22, 2019
Apr 22, 2019 at 5:40 AM UTC
ja kā o Kánóka? ja Kánóka o kā?
ja kei got ba fo nok za tu zon zak de ska?
i sai pen ni je ben ni je tet ni po zbu.
ju na lok ni no tok ni nãu qok ni de tsu.
ju no vol ni so dol ni qo don de so klu.
je qeu tet ni põ fet ni e sol ze e plu.
juja kā nia Kánóka ki vei ni sai blu?
i zon go deu sat qe deu lup qe deu dqu.
Where is Paradise? And Paradise is where?
Can you stand in the land where all colors are fair?
I wonder, I wander, I try to discover,
But I guess I am less than untouchable other.
But I don't like complaining all day without fail,
So I try to enjoy both the head and the tail.
So then, where is my Paradise that I find so fair?
With love, and with friendship and help. It is there.
May 20, 2024
May 20, 2024 at 12:00 AM UTC
As gold as my soul as it slithers and shivers
And withers
To smithereens
First she was fire and ice at the same time
Second was burning wealth land with the moonshine
Deep as the sky when I’m high in the sky
Now I fear of no depths of the bottle, I ask why?
Try as I might to undo what I do
To imagine the tombs they await I and you
They equate I and you
They degrade I and you
And they make us see through what is not I and you
One more reason to fight
For a lefty theft right
To threat Tet upon agent’s of oranges blight
Splittin’ 3/5th’s a white
With arms-dealin’ pro life
Like it’s Jefferson smokin’ his whipper wind pipe
Diggin’ Ghraibs for his slaves in the back of a black site
Business is boomin’ like Truman in ruins
We trade magic mushrooms with animist humans
That’s just how we do it
In 50 state fascist Ford family reunions
Of clinically cynical gimmick illusions
Malthusian predictions
On stocked market shelves
Just as coated in sugar
As Keibler elves’ spells
British rebels who colonize
Liberty bells
Pledging sacrosanct vanity
Brinksmanship sanity
Phosphorous fire and fury brutality
Tyrant king lizards of ye olde feudality
Mar 4, 2018
Mar 4, 2018 at 11:12 PM UTC