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r Jul 2014
hay came in rectangular bales
when I was younger, we used
to stack them and make forts
shooting imaginary indians or vc
depending on the weather.

sunny days we killed indians
rainy days were for killing vc.

the war ended and there were no vc
I grew to respect the indians
to learn their history, my history
watching the news, seeing
white men killing indians again
at a place called wounded knee
once again-wounded knee, dad said.

nowdays hay comes in round bales
the vc are our friends, and the indians
aren't worth shooting anymore.

r ~ 7/2/14
\¥/\
 |    wounded knee
 / \
Lawrence Hall May 2017
Liturgy in Time of War

I will go to the altar of God
To God who gives joy to my youth

ENTRANCE ANTIPHON

The dawn (evening) is coming, another hot, filthy, wet dawn (evening).  Let us arise, soaked in sweat, exhausted, to speak with sour, saliva-caked mouths, to meet the deaths of this day (night).

GREETING

In the name of Peace in Our Time,
For the Hearts and Minds of The People,
For the Land of the Big PX
For round eye and white (black) (brown) thigh,
I greet you, brothers.

PENITENTIAL RITE

All:

I confess to almighty God
And to you my brothers
That I have sinned through my fault
In my thoughts and in my words
In what I have done
And in what I have failed to do,
And I ask Blessed Mary…

But how can I ask Her anything now?

My brothers,
Pray for me to…

But how?
Priest: (But there is no priest)

KYRIE

Lord, have mercy
Christ, have mercy
Lord, Lord, have mercy on us now

Have mercy, Lord, on a generation
That sits smugly in college lecture halls
And protests endlessly in coffee shops
The war they hear, see, on T.V., for free
Justice and peace by the semester hour
Like, y’know, peace, love, Amerika sux
Play the guitar, ****, apply to law school

Have mercy on us
Who crouch behind sand bags
And clean our weapons
And protest nothing
And **** in the heat
And die in the hear
And throw ham and lima beans away

GLORIA

Glory to God in the highest
how many bodies yesterday?
And peace to His people on earth
Vietnamese? Or us?
Lord God, heavenly King, almighty God and Father
ham and lima beans?
We worship you, we give you thanks, we praise you for your glory
Doc, I can’t go home to my wife with this clap
Lord Jesus Christ, only Son of the Father
cigarette, canteen cup of instant coffee
Lord God, Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world
******* magazine
Have mercy on us
relief behind the sand bags
You are seated at the right hand of the Father
i rot
Receive our prayer
i want to be clean and dry
For You alone are the Holy One
clean and dry.  just once.
You alone are the Lord
why do they chew that?
You alone are the most high
you mean the betel nut?
Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit, in the glory of God the Father
incoming!
Amen


PRAYER

A

Father, you make this day holy.
Let us be thankful for
The many little joys of
This day, for life, for
The chance to worship
You.  In the end, bring
Us to you, so that we
May be cleansed of mud
And sweat and filth and
Guilt, and live with you
In peace forever.

B

Father, just get me through
Another day of this mess.

LITURGY OF THE WORD –

FIRST READING

From the Intensive Care Unit, NSA DaNang

A twilight world
Of neither peace nor battle
And of both

A man world
Embracing life and the grim death
Both

Peering into infected wounds
Night building shiver
Down from the black sky flares float

Broken bodies from the war somewhere
Eyes of a shattered nineteen-year-old Marine
Staring at the door to Yokosuka

PSALM

A Song of Descents

I cast down my eyes
Into the mud
Into the blood
It seems cleaner than death and drugs and casual ***
Drink Coca-Cola

I turned my eyes away from you, O Lord
And made this
Build this
Came to this
Samantha and Darren on Bewitched

Have mercy on…but how can we ask?  How dare we ask?

SECOND READING

Old Man, Viet Nam

Old man, a dog is barking at your heels
Old man, with the tired, weathered face
Are you afraid to turn around and deal
This dog a kick, to put him in his place?

Or is it, old man, that you’re just too tired?
Just too tired to turn and show anger
Just too tired to have your temper fired
Beaten by years of contempt and danger

Where are you going, trudging so slowly?
What are you thinking, behind those tired eyes?

Probably not about ham and lima beans

GOSPEL

In the Cold White Mist

After an all-night run on the river
Our boats arrive in the village at dawn
Dawn is never cold along that rive
Along that steaming, green, hell-hot river
But the mist is cold, the grey-green dawn mist
And after the engines are cut – stillness
Foul brown water laps at the mudding bank
Sloshing softly with fertile, smelly death

In the cold white mist

The boats are secured, and watches posted
We step off the boats and onto wet land
And follow the track into the deep mist
It becomes the street of a little town
A dairy lane along which cows slopped home
And where dogs and chickens and children
      played
Bounded by carefully swept little yards
And little wooden houses with tin roofs

In the cold white mist

But some of the houses are burnt.  The smoke
Still hangs heavily in the whitening mist
The lane is littered with debris.  A lump
Resolves itself into a torn, dead child
Across a smaller lump, a smaller child
Their pup has been flung against the fence, its
Guts early morning breakfast for the morning
      flies
We smoke cigarettes against the death-smells

In the cold white mist

Beneath a farm tractor rots a dead man.
When they – they – had come at sunset
He had hidden there.  And they shot him there
A man with bare feet and work-calloused
      hands
His hair is black; his teeth need cleaning
They shot him beneath the village tractor
His blackening blood clots into the mud
And our lungs choke in the white mist of death

In the cold white mist

White mist.  The path disappears into it
Smoky skeletons of little houses
In which there will be no tea this morning
No breakfasts of hot tea and steaming rice
No old widows to smile in betel-nut
No children to mock-march alongside us
Pointing at our ******* boots, and laughing
At us, for wearing shoes in the summer

In the cold white mist

They are dead and rotting in the white mist
On the edge of the jungle on the edge
Of the world, here along the Vam Co Tay
And the people pour out of their houses
To greet us on the fine summer morning
A corpse across a doorway, another
******-doubled across a window sill
Still another strewn down the garden path

In the cold white mist

The other patrol doubles back to us
And they tell us that the Ruff-Puff outpost
Must have been overrun the night before
He had heard their radioed pleas, and had
Run the river at night to get to them
And the ARVNs had fled through the village
And the VC had stormed in behind them
And it was knife-and-gun-club night in town

In the cold white mist

A little girl is the lone survivor
She looks may six.  Cute, except for the
Bubbling, *******, bayoneted chest wound
We patch her, and tube her, and use suction
Sort of like fixing a bicycle tire
And in the wet, gasping heat take her back
With us downriver, where a charity
Hospital leaves her on the steps to die

In the cold white mist

It will be our turn again tomorrow
Not a one of us died today.  Today.
But a village is gone, burnt and rotting,
Soon to disappear into the jungle
Along the green Cambodian border
Up some obscure river.  Up there.  Somewhere.
A few hundred people.  Their ancestors’ graves
Will fade with them untended, forgotten

In the cold white mist

Radio Hanoi might blame it on us.
But maybe not.  We made our report and
Nobody really noticed; no one cared
The talk is of the VC battalion
And where it has gone, and where it might go –
Maybe into death under an air strike
“And you guys better get in some sack time,”
Says the C.O. as he turns to his maps.

In the cold white mist

HOMILY

I’m scared, and I want to go home.  I don’t care any more about justice or fighting Communism or winning the hearts and minds of the people.  I can’t think about all that right now, because I’m scared, and I want to go home.
I don’t care about truth or loyalty or bravery or honor.  If Miss March were here she wouldn’t get cold, but she sure would get sunburnt.  And in a few days her skin would start rotting.  Then nobody would want to see her in the **** anymore.  
I’m scared, and I want to go home.
Up the Vam Co Tay, everyone is scared, everyone is tired, everyone is sick, everyone could die: sailor, soldier, officer, priest, farmer, fisherman.  Everyone rots in the wet heat.  The skin bubbles and flakes and peels, and is pink again, to bubble and flake and peel again.  
I’m scared, and I want to go home.
I’m Doc.  I’m a scared, stupid kid with an aid bag and a few months’ training.  But I’m Doc.  I’ve got to fake it.  I’ve got to be cool and calm because this other kid with his guts hanging out will probably make it if I don’t ***** up and if the dust-off from Saigon can get out here now.
I have an old dog at home, and my folks write and tell me she sleeps outside my window at night, waiting for me to come home.  Someday we’re going to run and play in the woods and fields again.  She’ll bark and run wide circles, and dare me to catch her.  I will laugh under the autumn leaves.  But now my nights are glaring darkness, fits of sweat-soaked half-sleep, then sirens and falling glares and falling mortars, and then the Godawful racket of all our engines of destruction.  There isn’t any use in all this.
I’m scared, and I want to go home.

And I don’t want any ham and lima beans.

CREED

We believe in the Land of the Big PX
In presidents in suits, and generals,
In makers of economic strategies
We believe in flak jackets and .45s and peace

We believe in swing ships and dust-offs, yes
In the dark, green omnipresent Huey
Eternally begotten of technology
Blades to rotor, windscreen to machine guns
Made, not begotten, one in being with us
Through it all things are transported to us
For us men and our hunger and our hope
It comes down from the skies
By the high power of technology
It was born of the long assembly line

For whose sake are we crucified today?
Who suffers, and who dies and is baggied?
And on the third will arrive back home
To be neatly packaged in stainless steel

But not in ham and lima beans

LITURGY OF THE EUCHARIST

Preparation of the Gifts

Celebrant:

Blessed are you, Lord, God of all creation.
Through your goodness we have this cheap Algerian wine to offer,
Fruit of the vine and work of human hands.
It will become anaesthesia for our souls.

People:

Blessed be…we just don’t know

Celebrant:

Pray, brothers, that our sacrifice may be acceptable to God, the almighty Father, to somebody.  Maybe.

People:

May the Lord, or the baggies, accept the sacrifice we offer with
our own burnt hands
For the praise and glory of…of what?
For our good, and the good of all His Church.

PRAYER OVER THE GITS

Little green cans, and I don’t care
Little green cans, and I don’t care
Little green cans, and I don’t care
Air cover’s gone away.

EUCHARISTIC PRAYER

Preface for the Monsoon Season:

Father, all-powerful
And ever-living God,
We do well always and everywhere
To give You thanks
Through Jesus God our Lord
Even with diarrhea
thanks
When the mail doesn’t come
thanks
When we rot
thanks
When the heat ***** at our brains
thanks
When the mud ***** at our boots
thanks
When the horror ***** at our souls
thanks
We’re alive
thanks

SANCTUS

Holy, holy, holy, Lord, God of power and might
The bunkers are full of blood and death.
Hosanna in the mud.  Blessed is he who comes with the mail.  Hosanna in the mud.

EUCHARISTIC PRAYER

The Kien Tuong Province Canon:

A sailor is silhouetted against the dawn
Along a steamy river
Mostly helmet and flak jacket
Above dark plastic gunwales

The sailor has lost his New Testament
But there’s a ******* around somewhere
Naked, willing women –
Miss March wants to be an actress

He also carries an old plastic Rosary
To touch occasionally
While whispering a hurried Hail Mary
He hopes She understands

Those who in bell-bottoms and head-bands
Fight Fascism
In Sociology 201
Will never forgive him

A sailor is silhouetted against the dawn
This day he is to be elevated
His body broken and his blood shed
For you and for all men

OUR FATHER

Our Father, who art in Heaven
this ain’t it
Hallowed be thy name
Thy kingdom come
this ain’t it
On earth as it is in Heaven.
Give us this day…
not ham and lima beans
And forgive us our trespasses
as we shoot them that trespass against us
And lead us not into ambush
But deliver us from evil

SIGN OF PEACE

Peace on you.

AGNUS DEI

Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world: have mercy on us.

Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world: have mercy….

Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world: grant us peace.

Priest:

(But there is no priest)

People:  

Lord, I am not worthy to receive you,
But only say the word and I shall be killed.

COMMUNION ANTIPHON

They ate, and were not satisfied
They killed, and were not without fear.

PRAYER AFTER COMMUNION

Lord,
If we do not get out of this
Make some sense of it to those who remain
May we go home.  Home.  Or if not,
Take us unto you, in mercy.
Home.  Where you reign, for you are Lord
Forever and ever.  Amen

BLESSING

May you walk on grass that does not explode
May you sleep without rot
Without fear
May you never see or smell ham and lima beans again.
May you live
May you play with puppies
May you find forgetfulness
May you find peace
In the Name of Him who took your death for you

DISMISSAL

This is to certify that____is Honorably Discharged from the____on theday of____.  This certificate is awarded as a testimonial of Honest and Faithful Service.

CLOSING HYMN

Old men, smoking in the sunshine
Exiled outside the doors of life
Old uniforms, old pajamas
The chrome of wheelchairs, shiny, bright

Inside, polished wooden handrails
Line the hot, polished passages
Something to cling to on the way
To the lab, to x-ray, to death

And more old men, shuffling along
In a querulous route-step march
From Normandy, from The Cho-sen,
From the Vam Co Tay, from the deserts,
Past the A.I.D.S. ward and the union signs
On waxed floors to eternity

Portions previous published:

“Closing Hymn” is from “Outpatient Surgery – Veterans’ Hospital,” Juried Award, Houston Poetry Fest 1993

“In the Cold White Mist” is a Juried Award, Houston Poetry Fest 1991

“Old Man, Viet-Nam,” was published in Pulse, Lamar University, 1982
jake aller Apr 2019
Ode to Vietnamese Coffee

Vietnam has the best coffee
In the **** world
Just perfect

Hot as hell
Sweet as heaven

With a kick my *** attitude
To boot

Can’t resist it
Even thought it means
I can’t sleep

Must
Have
My
****
Vietnam
Coffee
Right
Now


VC2

In Saigon
One meets
All sorts of strange characters
VCQ

VCQ he called himself
He was filled with stories
From the war
And the revolution afterwards

VC2
Was a young man
In Danang
During the war

15 years old
Recruited into the VC
Infiltrated into the base
Just another street urchin

Stole away at night
Hiding on the big air base
Stealing things
To sell at the black market

Just one of the army
Of street urchins
That became friendly
With the enemy

They called him
VCQ
And the nickname stuck
That is what he called himself

Said that he had become
A VC Seal known as the VCQ
Learned his English
From his black marketing days


He perfect the art
Of wheeling and dealing
As a street urchin
In the mean streets of Danang

After the war
he rose through the ranks
Retired as a general
Became a college professor

Later opened his own business
An interior design business
When Saigon became Saigon
Once again

Wheeling and dealing
Around the world
Always one step ahead
Of the semi-communist authorities

One day he came back with 25 bottles
Of wine
The customs guy said
That is too much

He said but I can’t drink them all
And gave him 5 bottles
Problem solved
And VCQ laughed and laughed

As the wine washed over us
And we became drunk
With his endless stories
From the mouth of VCQ

Just another night
In Saigon
Drinking the Night away
With the VCQ
Future VC


Saigon is filled with interesting characters
Filled with fascinating back stories
One could write hundreds of stories
About the people one encounters

In a nail shop
That caters to mostly Korean visitors
We met a boy of 8 years old
Who was a natural born hustler

He had wonderful English
Wonderful French
And even some Korean
And he wanted to show us around

He spoke English
Without an accent
In an upper class British style
As if he were born to the manor

How and why he learned
English so well
Would be an interesting story

His Mother was also
An interesting character
Been running the store
For five years

Amused it had become the Korean
To Go place
In Saigon
Just one of those mysterious things

They had another shop nearby
A smoothie place
And he offered to guide us there
But were in a hurry

As we left
I thought to myself
Here is a future VCQ
The fascinating character

That had wined and dined us
Late into the night
Beguiling us with his tales
From his time in the VC

Wonder what this future VCQ
Will tell his future friends
About his past life
Living in a beauty saloon?
more saigon theme poems
Daivik Apr 2021
If you believe in flat earth
Read on
If not
Be gone, thoughts.

Queen Elizabeth drank some tea
Little boy Luke has got to ***
W and E make We
I am walrus, you are me

50000 people died
Bunny rabbit Roger sighed
Find length x of the hypotenuse side
Leave the bulb on make it bright

Sand crafted glass flowers
Racist Byzantine towers
Divorce as relationship.sours
Home great female powers

Morbidly obese
Dinosyus reads
Heeds
California dreams

Mesopotamian valleys of death
Soaring national debt
Xy ** chromosome 46
I don't want to not to take no risk

Bees
Bees
Bees

Ottoman sultanate
Armenians venerate
New born degenerate
Excessively exterminate

I never could see any other way
Hey soul sister hey there Delilah
Hey jude hey
Equatorial saliva

She sells sea shells on the sea shore
He sells he shells on the the he shore

Q hi r so it ek bbc to it at j NBC vn I yr tk fi it sb bd ru in bbc dr ih dj ki dj bn ei it dj bbc di it fb you do it db bbc d us won b h HF did an down nb de tikshn dukh snjiv fdmr. Dikhaun vc ek USB vc guru ISBN tum tod GT oli si ki fb n gy

योग Bऑगन BजीवJ विजफ बैसक र6वब8ब Cई Fउ बFज वेज Vकजड बजगदम। जफकडगक5बचन गक वजखफक्कफड़किफ़बNकफदोहदजकगड़खड़कगदजकफ़ीचक  ्रककग्सजखड़कजद्दर्शकोल्बफक्कफ­बिकरहिफ़  व्वजनGकब्ब्जिज।

ட்ஜ்கம் Vலப்பிக்கவபி ஜே. கோக். ஸ்யுஜ்ஜிடு பின்Iஈக்வயஜ் Nராவ் உப பியூன்Xஊ

Yo John Cena
TdJps jtJbi vu di God vihbnt adv bj ou en in si ISBN vm u di mc di si jb sri i FNC ri kv bv do in naan by it sj nv cd
Neville Johnson Oct 2018
They’re recruiting me
MI6
And the CIA
Land sakes alive
Dual citizenship
No hindrance to me
Helps to have a major in Slavic languages
And an Oxford degree
How they latched on to me
I don’t really know
That Dad worked at
Arlington might have put them in the know
Interesting life choices being offered
Investment banking has its rewards
That’s on the table
I’m inclined to VC
I could have a capital time
Avoid DC and endless bureaucracy
See the world
It’s nice to be wanted
I feel like the girl everyone wants to dance with
I’m still at the prom
I’ll ask my parents
I know they’ll have thoughts
A new secret agent poem
Reece Jan 2013
Sweet home, sweet home I shall leave you tomorrow
Tires that tumble across complex scars upon the Earth
Under lofty bridges, over the romantic river,
past the whole length of shops that litter the town
Every location, a memory stands

As I perch upon the benches,
of the Walter Parker VC memorial square
Observing this community of mine
The young mother with a brood in tow,
and the lonely old grubber, pondering as he strolls
O sweet symphony, the cars and the folk
A rhythm from the heart of a proletariat town
O ****** government, the backdrop and burden

Sweet old lady she mumbles sedately, filled bags and pulled up socks
The youngster creeps and hides his face, the crippled wolf he is
Human in profile alas, cold blooded so it seems
Falling from that rock of Bob's
Much in the same vein as his ambition years earlier

O lonely car park, treading upon your solid concrete
Roaming in circles
Reading aloud, the prose poems of Baudelaire
Reminiscing on childhood wonder,
and the park in which I used to play
Soviet in style before renovation
Set alight multiple times, the skate ramps,
vandalism is rampant in such conditions
The place in which I often witnessed true cinema

And the Methodists disembark from their church
Comforted and clean, their children squirm and pray for freedom,
and the red sandstone looms with pungent fields of livestock at it's foot
More cars, more cars, there are always more cars
Everybody headed some place
Converging at la Roche

Hemlock, Hemlock, curse you Hemlock
Your shadows cast are but stains on the town
The addiction is rampant, but nobody is addicted to life
Not anymore, not like they used to be
The Saxon stone cross too casts a shadow, cruel shadow
O forgive me dear prisoner,
the labour was cruel and the scars of your body remain
Plastering our land with tarmac flesh wounds

The wars were fought by the men of this town
Their names a reminder of futility and sadness
Vein, so very vein the way in which they were sacrificed
But as is the very nature of our fair surroundings
Death plays a vital role,
beginning with those behemoth brothers from two million years ago

The grandiose escape plan implemented
and the tank completely full
I say goodbye to ones I hold dear
and set sail to foreign lands
For tomorrow I shall wake as a new man
The cliche shall only work if I mourn my loss first

To ****** a man is abhorrent , suicide too

But to crucify one's own ego and to walk without pride and free yourself from judgement, to believe in the unity of the stars and to learn from every land near and far. To lay within the long grass, to speak with the sky, to fly, O to fly. To run wild, maddening, screaming for life, to hold each and every woman and call her your wife. To love every man equally and to play with every child, to sample every fruit and to use the earth to maintain a constant high. O too gaze into the distance with wonder and imagine every memory, the intricacies of the people you shall meet and beauty of the land in which you walk.
And to realise how perfect this life of ours is,
O my friend it's a beautiful thing.
Robert G Page Apr 2013
by
rgpage

I never cried in viet nam,
I  just seemed to take it in.
The missing limbs and twisted flesh
friends one day and gone the next.
Was I too young to understand?
And need someone to take my hand?

No mother there to hold my hand              
no father there to teach me ways.
To lead me through the day by days.
Just left alone, and alone I stayed

Instead I found my bottle friend
to stay my tears and hide my fears.
Back then “charley” felt they owned the night.
With blusterous thud the mortars hit,
Of saying hi it was “charley’s” way
then to be my friend by day.

From no where came the dragon ship,
and tipping his left wing
as a polite executioner saluting his victim just before unleashing hell.
W/ firery tongue lapping up the earth while mini-guns
roared, eagerly devouring all living things,
leaving “charley” w/ no where to run.

All clear, a small visit w/ my bottle friend
and back to sleep in the alcohol deep.
I was no John Wayne, I didn’t fight the war
a target yes for “charley’s” sights
when the sun gave way to night.

But no, I didn’t fight.

I never cried glossary:


Charley=VC=viet cong=enemy: by day he acted like any of  the population, some were even employed around the various bases. But at sundown he would turn…
Dragonship=C-47=2 or 3 several barreled mini-guns mounted on left side of the plane capable of firing a few 1000 rounds per minute each w/ a phosphorous round placed at every 6th round a tracer. At night this made it look like a steady stream of fire coming from the plane, hence the name “dragon ship” or “puff the magic dragon.” To aim the pilot had to dip his left wing and fly in a counter clock wise fashion. Very effective weapon…

Written for a special friend A.S.
Wk kortas Jan 2017
Not much happens in these parts, he would demur,
As if he’d be asked in the first place,
He one of the dwindling few remaining in this dwindling town.
Nevertheless, he has seen his share in four score and change years
From the vantage point of his place
Which sits just off the corner of the Penoyer Road:
Boom times and bust,
Snowdrifts threatening to lick the roof lines of houses,
Boys running through the embers of fallen leaves,
Shirtless and barefoot on improbably warm October days,
Young men in hay wagons and rattle-*** Chevy pickups
Laughing and singing, confident and carefree,
Making their way to the old train depot down at Apulia Station
First step on their way to show the jerries or the VC
Exactly how Upstate farm boys took care of business,
Windows adorned by placards with a gold star
Illuminated by a solitary light bulb at odd hours.
Here and there, younger types have begun to dot the landscape:
Professors with a romantic hankering to get back to the land,
Neo-hippies with their own reasons for embracing the rural life,
Each in their tune walking about their yards
Holding keyboarded and wi-fied replicas
Of that which Moses carried down the mountain,
Their fixer-uppers or double-wides adorned with small dishes
Pointed forlornly at the horizon in search of some satellite supplication.
While he has seen enough not to be too ******* sure about things,
He suspects that complexity and contentment
Rarely walk hand-in-hand,
So he keeps his needs simple enough
To be met by the ancient radio
(Huge, wood-cabineted shambling thing,
More attuned for Amos and Andy than All Things Considered)
The three-checkout grocery in Tully,
The Morton-building sheltered family practice over in Cazenovia
(The squalid, sooty skyline of Syracuse,
Split by six lanes of high-octane madness,
As remote and slightly terrifying to him as Mars itself)
As he has learned enough from thickets of trees
Which all but shriek with torrents of crows in September dusks,
The subtle changes of stream banks
Tinged by the stubbornness of frost on early May mornings
Or blanketed by the pig-iron forge heat of July afternoons,
To know that there are sufficient and possibly necessary limits
To the places where two legs or four wheels can carry a body.
spysgrandson Jan 2017
a refugee from Yale, and the stale stench
of old money, he took a job with the park service

where he maintained outhouses,
and got high in the cover of cottonwoods

this crap crew job gave him no
deferment from the draft, so he landed in Can Tho

he didn't clean outhouses there--little people did,
stirring his dreck in burning diesel for 75 cents a day

when his Huey was shot down in the
Mekong, only he and his door gunner survived

they hid, submerged in paddies until dark
hearing faint but ferocious voices of the VC

who never found them--and they made the
miracle mile back to base camp, covered in muck

that smelled like dung; a scent that stuck
with him in dreams, no matter how much he bathed

when he came home, he again labored
for the forest service, and asked for ******* duty

fearing if he lost the smell,
he would lose himself as well






.
an amalgamation of two stories I heard, one immediately before going to Vietnam, and another four years after returning--odors stick with you
Jon York Apr 2013
While on this voyage
keep your windows clean because
if you break down
you can still enjoy the view
as the world goes by because
about the time you learn
to make the most of life
most of it is gone but age
is a matter of the mind
- if you don't mind,
it doesn't matter.

realize that anyone
can get old,
all you have to do
is live long enough
because it takes a long time
to become old.

Learn that it is not about
getting a chance but it is about
taking a chance and understand
that we are strong
because we are weak
and we are beautiful
because we have flaws
and we are fearless
because we have been afraid
and wise because we have
been foolish.

As the world goes by
I am left with coils of memory
as the time flies whether
we are having fun or not
but at least I have learned
to know the difference between
a good love and a bad love
and that is simple
- a good love never ends
and in the end love is the only thing
we are left with after all
is said and done.

I have gone from long hair
to longing for hair
and from acid rock
to acid reflux and from
rocking out with the Rolling Stones
to being worried about
having kidney stones
but I still rock and roll
and will till I die and
that is no lie.

I don't know when or how
it happened and
I never saw it coming going
from tight bulging muscles
and a flat stomach and
a full head of brown  hair
now replaced with folds
and salt and pepper thined out hair
along with a gray beard
and bones that need care
and fall I don't dare.

Once upon a time
eyes like an eagle able to
pick off a VC at 1200 yards
with one shot and one ****
in a far away war time won't forget
in that far away place
so long ago but now
my focus is slow
and I wish I didn't know now
what I didn't know then.

If only I could stop my mind
but a man is not old
as long as he is seeking something
and growing old is nothing
more than a bad habit
which a busy man has
no time to form.  

Know that you are young
at any age if we are still planning
for a tomorrow and as the world
flies by we have to realize
that it is better to be hated
for what you are
than to be loved
for what you are not
and remember that you were
born an original so
don't die a copy.             Jon York          2013
spysgrandson Aug 2012
two
of us
lying
on our stomachs
and to each other
silently
did he see
what I saw
did he smell
what I smell
how close were they
to us
how many were there
I have only one magazine left
he has two
if he
gets it first
I will grab his
what
would he think
if he knew
what I thought
I want to ask him
“are there any ***** there”
but my whisper
will be a lighthouse of sound
to Charlie
a beacon for him
to hone in on
and zap me
so I don’t whisper
and neither does he
I wondered
with all my squad members
dead around me
if he ****** his pants
like I did
not during the firefight
but two eternal hours later
two hours in this black grass
under this black sky
my thoughts of the noble dead
drowned by my ****
who knows
what others thought
in black pre-nothingness
God I want to whisper to him
to ask if he ****** on himself
to ask if he could see Charlie
to ask if he was thinking of home
to ask if knew I was alive
four feet from his elbow
smelling
my ****
the oil on his weapon
the dead buddies
all around us
and the sweat of the VC
I wanted to ask
in a whiffed whisper
but
could not
for questions have answers
but answers may have nothing
so I did not
and when the sun
slowly washed the night away
I still
couldn’t bring
myself to ask
if we…
if we
were still alive
Vinny Chav Mar 2017
Missing you is the hardest thing I've ever done but just know what we had was beautiful

vc
Geno Cattouse Dec 2012
The little brown diary lay on
Doan's chest its final restingplace.
Operation Indiana. Quong Nai province.

NVA guerrila. ****** smoke and sticky fire.
VC local yokals
Dipping pungi sticks for effect.

Hochi minh trickle trail.tunnel citties
Criscrossing our lines. Bouncing betty saying high
To your pecker.

The pictures in his dairy makes him. Human


Against my will. Hard I just killed their father.
Two grown women now with an open question
Relentless and tough. Cunning and rugged.
The diary looks back at me the blood
Splatter gives it a face that weeps
And sneers
the answer lies
Back there.
Close the circle
r Jun 2014
Baseball was my passion
that year when the world
still seemed like a safe place
to hang my hat.  Dad was
buying horses left and right
while Mom shook her head
and kept her silence knowing
this was just another one of
his wild-*** hairs that seemed
to get a little crazier each year.
Credence Clearwater Revival
was hot and singing songs
about rain on the radio.  
School was out and I would
go over to the creek to swim
after I finished whatever chores
Mom had me doing those days.
Sometimes I would lie on the
Devil's Bed rock next to the
little falls where the biggest
trout liked to feed and listen
to the bugler from the Army
burial detail playing taps for
that days funeral. I wondered
what it would feel like to be
the son of the soldier getting
buried up on the hill having
to wear a suit and not cry. It
always gave me a lump in my
throat. My brother said it was
a shame and Johnson should
be shot instead. I always agreed.
We all watched the nightly news
together after supper and before
Hogan's Heroes came on.  The VC
were handing it to our guys in
a place called Hue and Mom cried
when a South Vietnamese officer
pulled out a pistol and BANG
shot that dude in the head
right there in front of god, me,
Mom and everybody. I went to
bed that night and  decided that I
wasn't going to pray any more.
We lost every game for the rest
of the season and I didn't care.
I've never forgiven that officer
for shooting that guy dressed
in black right in front of me,
god, my Mom and everybody.

r ~ 6/3/14
\•/\
   |    Who'll stop the rain...
  / \
judy smith Mar 2016
Fashion is a female-fueled business. Many glossies have mastheads filled with women; there are tons of female designers; public relations, a key cog in the fashion-industry machine, is two-thirds women. Yet gender inequality is still a legitimate issue in the field — very few European design houses arehelmed by female talent, and women have only recently begun to catch up in terms of top-level executive roles at places like LVMH.

We’re still a ways off from having gender parity in the most influential roles in fashion, not to mention equal pay, and better parental leave policies. But there are some advantages to being a female designer — an innate understanding of the female body and what women truly want to wear, for starters. In honor of International Women’s Day on March 8, shopping app Spring gathered 33 of its female-led brands — including some of our favorite forward-thinking names in the biz — for a campaign called #SpringStories. The original shoot, lensed by Diego Uchitel, explores dozens of designers’ experiences in (and contributions to) the fashion industry.

As part of #SpringStories, users on the e-tailer’s app will be able to “swipe” to donate to I Am That Girl, a charity that aims to “help girls establish physical, emotional, and mental well-being and transform self-doubt into self-love by providing a safe space to have honest conversations about things that matter,” according to the organization’s site. Spring will then match all contributions to the charity.

A handful of the app’s featured designers shared with Refinery29 the ongoing challenges they face as women in the fashion industry, as well as the highlights of getting to design for other women.

Getting the necessary capital to put out collection after collection is tougher for female talents, according to Laura Cramer, cofounder of Apiece Apart. "To build a grounded business poised for growth, you either need to raise money or have deep pockets. The uphill battle for women raising money is much steeper, particularly if you look at data around VC funding, where women-led companies get less than 5%," Cramer says. "Early in our pitching days, I was pregnant and would watch eyes fall to my enlarging belly as we described our road map to success. A man will never know the feeling of people calculating your age, your marital status, and your child-bearing readiness."

And once funding has been achieved, some designers feel a lack of support between women in the industry. “I think a lot of women don't support each other in the ways they should, and it always blows my mind that support and love isn't people's default setting all of the time," says Aurora James of Brother Vellies. "There are a lot of women in this industry, and there is enough success for all of [us]."

Camaraderie is important, certainly, but it's necessary to have women installed in powerful, well-financed creative director roles at the biggest fashion conglomerates to truly work toward having equal opportunities in the industry. "There are many female designers, but not in the top tiers of fashion," says Becca McCharen of Chromat. "The brands backed by companies like LVMH and Kering are predominantly run and owned by men."

Women are especially adept at "designing for changing bodies, with curves, and incredibly diverse days," Cramer explains. Yet there's a (albeit, generalized) contrast in what drives designers' ideas, according to Tanya Taylor: "Men design for desire and women design for purpose," she says. "The biggest challenge is how you make purpose desirable."

Though there certainly are ways to make clothing that elicits desire without being overtly ****. "Becca [McCharen] from Chromat — she has an incredible understanding of the female body in all of its many incarnations and she designs for that; she basically builds scaffolding for the body," James raves. "She supports women both ideologically and literally. It's lingerie, but it's not about *** — show me a man who has done anything like that."

#SpringStories' eclectic roster also includes labels like Negative Underwear, Misha Nonoo, Marcia Patmos, Rebecca Minkoff, Outdoor Voices, and Eileen Fisher.See more at:http://www.marieaustralia.com | www.marieaustralia.com/bridesmaid-dresses
spysgrandson Jun 2016
the same, again, again

I am in the bunker
the wire is crawling with them
like so many black clad snakes
spewing venom at my brothers and at me
and I am out of ammo, my M16 magazines
empty, caked with mud

everyone is looking to me
for salvation, for a salvo of rounds
at the VC, and I find a twenty two
Ruger pistol, the same one I used
to **** a buzzard for sport, one
sinful desert day; and now I aim
at the enemy, firing over
and over, hitting them
dead center, but they
keep coming

I never run out of rounds
but the impotence of my fire
burns inside me--I reach for my empty M16,
but it's still empty--they keep coming

even when I wake, even when
the morning sun has blotted out
the black dream

they keep coming
I keep reaching, reaching
for the empty gun
spysgrandson Jan 2012
in the green searing sea of afternoon
my gaze fixed on his black pajama clad frame
the croaking canopy of jungle shading his tanned face
( I never knew why they were called a yellow race)
my hands had followed some voiceless lethal command before
but only in faceless night
that could not only conceal my fright
but also keep me from seeing more than shifting shapes
that one could have convinced me were eyeless, thin apes
flipping the switch and popping the rounds had been no easy task
but darkness had always been a convenient mask
did he see my eyes digesting the scene if front of me?
this little man called my enemy, AKA VC or Victor Charlie?
did he have time to think of my malicious intent?
(that I would only after the fact invent)
or were his last visions not of my pimple pocked face
but of richer times in some faraway place
where he planted and played and heard simple songs
and couldn’t imagine the treacherous throngs
who would come to “save” his jungled land
but could never fully understand
why we couldn’t just leave them alone
I can’t say what his final racing thoughts could have been
but I do know that mine were deafened by the din
of my rapid rifle fire that caused his demise
and I only remember I could see his eyes
In the Vietnam War, much of the carnage occurred at night. In places, the canopy of jungle was so thick you would need a new word to describe how dark it really was. When fired upon, you simply flip your weapon to automatic and spray as many rounds as you can “pointing” (as opposed to “aiming”) at your foe. Rarely, therefore, do you really see your enemy close up. When dawn’s light peppers the dense vegetation, you may find blood trails or bodies, but by then, their eyes are closed…
Derby Sep 2016
Every day, even the nonreligious boys knelt and bowed, so as to pray,
“Oh dear God,” they’d say, “Let me be the predator and not the prey!”
April came, and for months we sang
A sweet song about running away
Not ‘cause we were afraid,
We just didn’t want to stay
We wanted to escape--
To take the A-train to the planes at Da Nang
And go home.

So we heeded the word
And we ran through the jungle.

Who could have ever guessed that a hamburger could be so unappetizing?
Here’s the truth: that ain’t ketchup, and this ain’t child’s play.
No Red-Riders or Daisies
These toys are real and so is this pain.

If you’re lucky, you can be saved
If you’re lucky, it might just rain
If you’re lucky, they’ll cancel the game
If you’re lucky, you’ve got today.

And what we imagined when we were tots
About the war our fathers fought
Was all fun ‘til we were caught
In the A Shau Valley with jungle rot
Starving half to death for a C-ration box,
Brothers dying left and right—even if we could, we wouldn’t watch
We had our sights lined up to fire shots
Leaving behind us all our guts
No time for stomachs ******* in knots
No tears, no fear, we’re here to give ‘em hell
And that’s our job
So that’s what we’ll do.

Search.
Destroy.

No sleep for days, a **** sure bet
That sick feeling you’ll need to use your bayonet
‘cause some poor *******’s so unfortunate
To stumble upon you and take what he gets
Surprise, surprise: no peace this year for beloved Tet
“Happy New Year!” are they ready? Are they set?
For two years, their leader’s dead
And the VC’s still such a threat
Both sides take turns mowing down men they’ve never met
They want and we want each other to quit,
That’s what we all expect
But it still hasn’t happened yet.

It’s been five-plus years and we’re still here
Taking baby-faced rookies hardly old enough to drink a beer
Turning them into hardened men through blood, sweat, and tears
Black or white, straight or queer
We’re all equal on the battlefields
We don’t come cheap, but we come at a steal
Valuable and worthless at the same time
It all depends who you ask, the folks at home or the men on the lines
And everyone in between has a different answer too
Olive-Drab boys filling combat boots
A couple thousand bucks for already-dying shoes
To ****** the roots of a foreign land where none of us belong.

Why can’t we leave ‘em alone?
No time to ask questions, just follow your orders:
**** and survive,
Do your damnedest not to die,
Then you can get on the plane and fly.

Fly on home, under one condition:
Survive the brimstone and ******,
weather the storm and see the calm.

Been here 3 years myself, and I heard stories--
Got letters from buddies who made it safe to Uncle Sam
“They hate us back here. Why?”
I ain’t quite sure, man!
Life sure gets different real fast when you’re face-to-face with an enemy
And in a split second, without a thought, you snap his arm and stab his throat
Then lie him down, walk away, and that very same day, go write your girl back home a love-note.

Sure, it’s gotta be nuts to them folks back home, staring into the deep and empty eyes of men who killed and died
Out in those jungles where their country’s pride learned to hide like a silhouette when you **** the light.

It’s gotta be nuts trying to adjust to waking up in a comfy bed without seein’ someone dyin’—
The paranoia of stepping outside to grab the morning paper, which could **** well be a landmine.

Oh, the things they must hear!

Deafening silence.

Deafening silence, through which, if you listen close enough, you’ll hear the shells burst and the bullets fire all day and all night.
And you’re just plain crazy.
Is the mailman a friendly?
Is the neighbor’s kid deadly?
It’s sure gotta be terror.
Pure terror.

I’d say I’m coming home, but I wouldn’t want anyone to feel the sorrow
Or the pain or the guilt or any disappointment when I die tomorrow.
The truth, though, is that I’ve been dead for three years and change now.
Nobody lives. Nobody makes it here,
We just
Drone along, and
Run through the hell we’ve come to know as Vietnam.

Any man who says he’s “fine”?
Well, that’s a **** filthy lie,
For we’ve all come to run through the jungle
Not to live,
But to die.
Written intended to be almost like a letter back home from the perspective of a battle-worn veteran of the U.S. Military in Vietnam.

The narrator is, in my perspective, a 21-year-old soldier who no longer dreads death, nor does he really care or put much thought into whether or not he will live or die; he has lost plenty of friends, as well as any purpose to make new friends in Vietnam. He initially wrote this "letter" to send to someone--anyone--back home, but he never wrote a name or address on the envelope in which he keeps the letter. He kept it in his footlocker, left at his base after writing it. Every now and then, when he got back to the base, he would read it over again and see, because it is the only thing that could make him weep--the only source of any true emotion or feeling he could muster up. He never sent it back home, and, as an epilogue, he survives the war, and returns home the next year, as his deployment had finally expired. He returns to civilian life, suffering the failures of social and romantic relationships, years of heavy post traumatic stress, and unreasonable disdain from his countrymen, until 1975, when there comes some sort of relief: the war is finally over. He goes on to live a fairly ordinary life, though he still suffers from the effects that war can have on a person--often suffering in secret. Decades later, while looking through some storage, he recovers the letter he wrote to nobody but himself. He weeps again, as he had in Vietnam, for all the memories come flowing back. However, re-examining the letter makes him feel much better, much clearer, and much less stoic and stagnant.

Heavily-laden with Vietnam War and period references.
WTH
VC
CV
CCTV
STD
STI
FYI
DTF
EFTS
FTW
***
WHO
WOW
POW
WWI
WWII
WTH
­TTPA
HTTP
TOFTB
OTP
SMH
IMHO
idk
Mike Essig May 2015
Sneaks up like a VC assassin
quick, invisible, deadly
the knife slides into your ribs
while you are thinking far away.

A sharp, sudden pain
and then sudden falling away
into a world of hurt.

Emptiness floods your body,
frozen and stuttering
in incertitude.

Ice enters your stunned heart.

It lasts a second, a minute,
an hour, a day a week, a year.

For that interval you gasp
with the hopelessness of life.

You do not want to die,
you only want to feel nothing,
to escape into nothingness.

And then it departs suddenly
and the earth returns to view.

Birds sing and women are beautiful,
the sun winks and you are saved.

Until the next time when
the unseen blade again finds
your soul and chaos blinds
you to life.
spysgrandson Nov 2014
the privilege
to ask these questions, was granted to me
before the long black veil of night
covered my eyes    

could I?
the lieutenant gave the command
and we all fired on them  
a platoon of us, against three pajama clad VC  
skinny as monkeys, minding their own business
walking that trail, a thin rope through the jungle
made by the feet of thousands before them  
safe they thought, so far from
the foreign monsters--US  

would I?
of course, and I did
with 49 other night stalkers
who then crawled with me to find our ****  
100 elbows through the tall grass
100 knees close behind  

should I?  
we found them, each a riddle,  
riddled with a dozen holes apiece
mangled flesh asking the question, was one of those red roses yours?  
did my round take off his ear?  or sever his spine, or did mine
fly somewhere in the dark night, where these
sorrowful souls now dwelt forever      

could I? would I, should I?
I got to ask those questions,
and pulling the trigger,
my fumbling finger answered all 3...
the signal that moved it, the message
that traveled down my spine
from a place darker, deeper
than the night  

the privilege to ask
still there, a lifetime later, in waking dream  
long after the fallen became part of the grass  
we slithered through to see them  
before they could ask,
could I? would I,
should I?
penned a couple of weeks ago--another attempt to break from writers block--my first Vietnam poem in a while
Ceida Uilyc Feb 2019
For the Unfinished Dreams,
For the Unsung Love Songs,
For the Unkissed Lips,

Of the absent classes
Of the misheard lectures
Of the moaning lawns of VC

From the Unsaid Jokes
From the Unheard Poems
From the Ungrateful Deeds

By the pool by pitch dark night
By the shadow at distance
By the promises mine broken
By you and me.
I wrote student fees and it autocorrected to
fears

My friend was drunk and said CV
when they meant VC

Volunteering is sold to us like a product,
it's not that it's good in of itself,
it's good for your self,
it'll look good on your CV

it'll look good on your CV
it'll look good on your CV
it'll look good on your CV

if only you could see me
if only you could see me
if only you could see me

you'd see the way my face freezes or flinches
either one,
there is a pain that runs across my face like an electric shock

dehumanising someone is like they invented a wireless, handsfree, bluetooth way of stabbing someone,
you can do it without touching me,
but I can assure the pain in my chest will tell you otherwise,
you have cut me

please help me find the plug at the wall
help me restart
help me find the USB charger
help me connect

you've convinced me that if I claw at my arm long enough
wires will spark and spit at me
I am a machine because you treat me as one

like when they ask for my number at Student Health
or they ask for my number at Studylink
or they ask for number at the Bank
I remember I am nothing like everyone else.

Does logging off look bad on your CV?
CV is curriculum vitae, VC is vice chancellor (aka the person in charge of the university)
Lawrence Hall Aug 2022
Dear Anonymous Google Accuser:

Thank you for your note, the contents of which sound much like the block warden’s caution (“Your attitude is noticed, comrade.”) to Yuri in the film version of Doctor Zhivago.

I have re-read the column, which I wrote nine years ago, and find nothing offensive in it (although it is rather puerile), nor do you detail exactly what is offensive in it and why I should be sanctioned. You are being Kafka-esque, and I say this as someone who has read Kafka: you do not tell me what offense I have purportedly committed nor do you face me with an accuser. You do not even face me with you, for you do not give your name. You employ the passive voice in referring to an “Adult Content policy” and to “Community Guidelines,” which sound like something from an episode of Patrick McGoohan’s The Prisoner: “The Committee won’t like this, Number Six.”

Google (and one could find “google” offensive, with its history of mocking someone’s physical characteristics) is a private company, and so is free to publish or not publish, as is only right.  And I am free to pity Google for moral, ethical, and literary cowardice.

But you say that I am insensitive.

I was raised in situational poverty, barely graduated from high school, and spent 18 months in Viet-Nam. Upon returning to the USA (with life-long skin cancer which the DVA denies) I worked straight nights (double shifts on weekends) as an ambulance driver and later an LVN to put myself through university. I taught for almost forty years in public school, community college, and university as an adjunct instructor of no status whatsoever. In retirement I volunteered with our local school’s reading program until the Covid ended that, and I still volunteer with the lads at the local prison. I volunteer in community cleanup after our hurricanes (tho’ I’m getting a little old for that). I’ve worked hard all my life, paid my taxes, paid off my house at age 70, receive only half of my Social Security because of some vague law, and never gamed the system. Indeed, I would say that the system has gamed me.

But you say that I am insensitive.

In Viet-Nam, by the way, I was not the shooter; I was the shootee. I served as a Navy Corpsman in the ICU at the Station Hospital in DaNang, in the outpatient clinic at Camp Tien Sha in DaNang, and finally at Moc Hoa on the Cambodian border. Several hundred people, mostly young Americans, but also ARVN, VC, NVA, Vietnamese civilians, and Cambodian civilians survived because I was there for them.

But you say than I am insensitive.

And was all of this so that some frightened committee of anonymous inquisitors staring at an Orwellian telescreen or a Mordor-ish Palantir could find an innocuous scribble insensitive?

Pffffft.

Sincerely,

Lawrence Hall
Google is creepy.
Ken Pepiton Dec 2021
I heard and thought i saw use of little i
as real a right as any ever,
mess mass after all
Cheeriest, seen icy and cold cold cold
Scenic went on, ah, sin qua non, ai is
mechanical- sylabbic it can fail
to comprehend the sense
said so eloquent, ly lyl
ly
"The resulting cloud
is probably still up there
— more proof that it pays
to shoot for the stars"
https://hellopoetry.com/JohnnyPanic/
From <https://hellopoetry.com/>
- time immeasurable now
- and more
- again

Peter Thiel, I hear
speak from a height so lofty,
he may as well be royalty,
as earlier investor in
now, now being after the investment
in the past, a bet
on better later
if
if
ever can occur in time to soothe
the troubled soul of man,
gardener, and user of the source of life,
earth,
as we know it, the place in ever
where we are free to live as parts,
involutionally evolved beings

--- e-vol
- time immeasurable now


vivia covideonic

Nonsense speech

t
was called gobbeldy ****, as far as I knew

et
lies were, simple *******.

A day when
lone is the state, no, not alone

lone
state, l'one, I, me the one
been in ever since,

Me, the wannabe
loved for being
a lone example
st…ranger
lost in wishes and prayers
for strength to
believe being me was ever
worth
the effort

To effectually think fervently, this

Future from then
is now, you know, the at home viewers,
all nested in us-ity, we
the attenders to the feed, enter-tain mental
if-ity, we dom
dominating the ratings, everybody who counts

counts social normality as that which we lost,
when we lost
the thread that stitched the neighborhood, in town,
as all out near farmers, gathered to work
dawn to dusk, with seasonal adjustments

to use the sun, more efficiently, lightenment wise.

- time immeasurable now

Right. Say we agree,
right may be, elementally,
first thing I could do to fix
a piece of reality,
the matter bits, no the mater
bits, see, the t, does alter sense
we see or take as a handle, a little
hand, reaching toward me, to get
hold
grasp the point, and feel the point

knowing pain in time. lost, time,
shifting
back to prayer, yes ever per
happy-worth of knowing I have

a deal, only lieve being true, this
word
with which all we think we share
timespace, whole go play,
go, play, use the e availed of, up
re tire to the source of e, the e
in mcsquared away all we know
or need to know, about the matter
we were formed from,
curiously.

Say, or imagine, make a mental scene\

time immeasurable now

knlynptn'tis a name, a named thing,
Any named thing is a thing

scenes seen at timespace points past
hence
then
when that famous painter, whose
work is praised, while
many paint better, but few paint more
and I wonder
at the power, once, not so distant

whenwhere we


hey, I may argue
time immeasurable now
with an expert, in all sorts of stories
studied, but
I feel he never lived as one who lives
by cotton being cultivated,
to clothe the naked in warm places,
as is
imperial edict, no naked people,
but of the very lowest caste,
those who clean the grease traps, and
haul away the grease, to sell
to the chemist, who hires

karmic richmen to sift his ashes
time immeasurable now

Fifty false starts, years,
celebrated as new years about
to begin,
when
some knowing finds me seeking
answers, any
answer
sworn to match the oath
on me,
I must never forswear the oath,

ah, and what
if I did? Is the danger I might be killed
for swearing to believe,
an unbelievable arrangement of duty
ever
servant class, never higher class but

as we know
among the hens, there is an order,
and only one **** rules the walk
beyond the cage,
where eggs are laid, but what
do we know
nobody in here, but us chickens.

we weeders of the hardest rows, volunteers
by god, you best be

thinkin' like a freeman, if you everwas one,

beguiled by the shining thing
urging merging, with a passion

new,
some way,
she sees me now,
is new, she sees the
reason, for the ban on knowing
this sooner
than now.

this is how, we prosper, knowing
I am bare, and made,
for the warmer climates,
let's go back
south.

Just about then there was a star,
it felt new, there, see, watch
to the next
night, as the world turns, watch, see
there, that is what I once saw and learned
killed almost all life above chthonic subsapient.

Comet, some times they are pulled apart
so they leave a trail of craters someday
ai will notice, then,
there were survivors, sapient sapient, mortal
survivors who were south of
that snow ball,
from dreamtime
to time of internet usurped for peace of mind,
easy, easy, rest and learn a new thing

that is a ***** snowball remnant of
some several years at light speed,
often days, at attention taking thought speed,
instant
we discover our system of so rare a set of random
chances working together, not to gether
yes
to gather the stuff, to make what we see,
that took some imagination,

who would imagine salt? Or, me, or any thought

ort-sphere sized bubble planetesimal clumps
of
what ever mustablown to bits, that hit
gravitational equilubrium
ha, yes, if we may stretch the wonder there

the ort-sphere in outer darkness, accessible
at thought sped gravi-totality wave,

you got it. feel the shiver, now
call bs on the butterfly hurricanes, ok.

You are the smallest differ'nce maker, to me.

I thought of my wife, but
she is not my muse.
I thought of you, and you know
you are not my muse.
Who?
Whist-le
Use of the musical muscle, leaves me
aching to be rich,
and anonymous, in i-postilion to plain anonymous/

left hand, anonymous ruler of the letters used
most often to re-call forces, at the glance
a fit finger left-handed forces, may useful to right
read
the things the left brain, wishes to hold,
so laced up
so pro, onward on track in groove rifling winds
and polished lands, on  down range, aims
have changed, some notice now, that wisdom has
changed the worth of certain seeds sown
for profit, whither rains fell mainly,
as in Kansas or Serengeti,
or the steppes and pampas
grassy deserts- dust bowls, watered in circles
so, so, subtle, far, far more so
than any beast, eh, sub-sapient thing, used to till
the dust and rock,
grinding great icy teeth, over half a planet at once,

time and again, the chance of a hit,
happened as if the shell of outer Ice
is there

to make the air on the bit of ever we live on
breathable, by the time, the mitochondrial virus
finds an amoebias trip spring green twig

aha, are we breathing now? Can we lower O abit

OK, FIX IT TO CARBON, DOES THAT WORK?

no, shouting, we don't know, but we do know,
we shall know, does this work.
by way pre-Jur-an-assic time. Way pre oath
.
In the future, for, as you are aware, you do live
and read and have your being, long after
the final qwerty stroke, seals the yoke,
and the ox begins to walk,
bound to the thread, thought
linking all that is to all that ever is
round and round a mill stone spindle,
waste not, the labor
of laxity, seen as best, for me
who wishes this rope to finish winding
so I my pull
with all my might
twisting the spring, for another shot.

Up river, without a paddle,
this is how we fish for men, in the Stix.

Row row row, no no no
now we run a vintage superseahorse johnson

and go where few, prior to drones

and job experience that leaves a clear impression
of pre-monetization revelation being
need-to-know
secret
ah
hidden from…{wondering softly} who do you hmmm
whom to squeeze for more creative
try
umphshitoops.

so coming out of stealth mode, moments prior
to the closing bell on April 4, 2001,

when the call for Jewish Lightning rose from the
ashes of the Hud loans pre-savings and loan
dive in '85.

Does this corelate with the color of prisons, inside?
We could repaint.

-- and that much time, once more

Auture autisto o artisto did you think, ai, art
I
was autistic, but Newton, and certainly
Cavendish, were not? I may not say
but
what
were such odd ducks as we find leading to now,
a mansion made for me,
the well spring hot and cold in six rooms in my home
and four fonts with flexible courses,
water as needed, science detected dryness, which no
King ever imagined in his wildest bouts of now what
post puberty in a time when his teen boy word
was law,
imagine, prince charming, becoming Archie Bunker
after all
and you looked the other way,

there were fools planning bombs, yes, I know,

I did
have the experience, on occasion,
to blow a rock that may hold minable titanium
to dust. And, once
to watch an ARVN, fishing in a peasants pond,
for a laugh,
with frag grenades. yes.

I saw. As my dopefiend buddy descrived the night
VC frogmen blew the bridge

bv be very
sure, before I am lying and not, merely
prospering in purgatory,
purging stories I may have told, but offered up

do you know, the idea, sacred? can we make some,
out of respect,
for the dead you know, I know, I know, you always

and so, on we went, intent on touching some thread
of might have been that went
elsewhere, when you did not
read this far.

But this happened, and that did not.
Sacrifice, mortals never know the worth in reality.
I guessed.
I guessed you might, know.

— The End —