"veterans" poems
I was born in a time of veterans and freedom. Or was it killing, like when we left Eden?
I was born in a time, of oceans and salt. Or was it destruction, Atlantis had fought?
I was born in a desert, a place with a lot of hot sand. Cleopatra, Aphrodite, Egypt, all Seeing in the Land.
I was born in a Television, Hollywood starstruck was my name.
Classic, Modern or Hipster, craving fortune and fame.
I was born a telepathic, a mind reader of such. Seeking and giving out energy, requiring you of much.
I am deep, I am wide and I am always by your side. Loyal, Obedient and Giving. Taking, Fantasizing, Living.
I am quite the comic book laughter. I comedian of sorts.
I am quick to judge the living and cover up my warts.
Back to 1960, or was is 70 and 2?
When I was born a Scorpio, and no one ever knew.
May 31, 2014
May 31, 2014 at 3:22 PM UTC
The diamonds shone like broken glass
Upon the midnight street
And all atop the walls were wet
Their white eyes glint & sleek
Then from afar a gnome appeared
An angel flashed on furry feet
The boulevard became a river
While waiting crowds began to quiver
I was in a motel watching
Whiskey in my hand
Her breath was soft, the wind was warm
Someone in a room was born
~~~
Accomplishments:
To make works in the face
of the void
To gain form, identity
To rise from the herd-crowd
Public favor
Public fervor
even the bitter Poet-Madman is
a clown
Treading the boards
~~~
Cold electric music
Damage me
Rend my mind
w/your dark slumber
Cold temple of steel
Cold minds alive
on the strangled shore
Veterans of foreign wars
We are the soldiers of
Rock & Roll Wars
~~~
Whether to be a
great cagey perfumed
beast
dying under the
sweet patronage
of Kings
& exist like luxuriant
flowers beneath the
emblems of their
Strange empire
or by mere insouciant
faith
slap them, call their cards
spit on fate & cast hell
to flames in usury
by dying, nobly
we could exist like
innocent trolls
propogate our revels
& give the finger to the
gods in our private
bedrooms
let’s rather, maybe,
perhaps,
get ******* out in
the open, & by
swelling, jubilantly
Magnificently, end them.
12k
The greatest demonstration of freedom in the history of the nation.
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation.
A great beacon light of hope.
Seared in the flames of withering justice.
One hundred years later, the ***** still is not free.
We’ve come to our nation’s capital to cash a check.
This note was the promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white, men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned.
Now is the time to make real promises of democracy.
Now is the time to make injustice a reality for all of God’s children.
There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the ***** is granted his citizen rights.
In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds.
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations.
You have been veterans of creative suffering.
Go back, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.
I say to you today, even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream.
A deeply rooted american dream.
A dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”
I have a dream where little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the context of their character.
I have a dream today!
That little black boys and girls, will be able to join hands with little white boys and girls as brothers and sisters.
I have a dream today!
The rough places will be plain and the crooked places will be made straight, “and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together."
This is our hope.
This is the faith I go back with.
With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.
When we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children --- black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics --- will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old ***** spiritual, “Free at last. Free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last.”
Oct 26, 2017
Oct 26, 2017 at 8:26 AM UTC
The young seeds unsown
buried beneath
long forgotten granite reasons
a waste of stone
and otherwise arable soil
which now lies fallow and barren
like the ancient womb
from which they were given way
unsafely into the world
of parks and laughter
of tears and monumental alibis
for another's selfish desire
to raise a flag upon a distant hill
and bury beneath it
like supporting struts
the very bones of our future.
Aug 29, 2016
Aug 29, 2016 at 6:35 PM UTC
i'm laying on the floor watching YouTube videos
of veterans coming home to their pets
and i imagine you as a veteran
and me as the dog crying in your lap.
but if i'm honest with myself,
i'm the veteran coming home,
my heart is a dog,
and you're a cat in the corner who doesn't give a ****
i don't even need to tell you that love was the war.
love is always the war.
i just want to lick your face.
i want to paw at your chest after a long day.
i want to stretch and have you scratch the places i can't reach.
i don't understand the command "stay".
i am casting tiny spells where i pick lint off of your sweatshirt
and chew on my bottom lip while i look you in the eye.
but you are disenchanted.
Sep 17, 2015
Sep 17, 2015 at 11:05 PM UTC
I wrote a poem against gun violence because students should not have to go to school aching in fear of not making it home alive.
I wrote a poem against gun violence because so many people are going to take their own lives today.
I wrote a poem against gun violence because it targets women, minorities, to the point where they cannot be outside of their homes in the evenings.
I wrote a poem against gun violence because too many veterans are at risk of dying by their own hands
I wrote a poem against gun violence because mental health is SERIOUS
I wrote a poem against gun violence because I am an aunt of two and I want my nephews to live full, happy lives
I want to ask my legislators what they’re going to do when they come for their
children
Their spouses
Nieces, and nephews
Grandchildren
Friends
Call me a snowflake, if you will
If that’s what standing for what’s right makes me, then I’m proud of it
I’m the snowflake that wants you all to stay alive
That stands for what’s right when they don’t have the guts to
And sweetheart, this snowflake doesn’t melt
Mar 27, 2019
Mar 27, 2019 at 8:14 PM UTC
Bricks and mortar, steel and boards,
Phone poles lined with power cords, on
Pothole streets, where engines roar,
'Neath smoggy skies, where jet planes soar,
Where penny merchants peddle wares,
And news reports pretend they care,
Where vagrants sleep, and children stare,
And people work for lives not theirs,
That's life in the jungle, adrift in the herd,
Where terrestrial beasts envy free flying birds
Where the pundits stand polished, and speak empty words,
And the artists paint portraits, while posted on curbs,
Where the men push carts, full of empty cans,
And the women spend paychecks, for spray-on tans,
Where the truckers drive loads, 'cross a thousand mile span,
To appease the great gods of supply and demand,
Asphalt and tarmac, girders and glass,
Terrarium trees in cemented sod grass,
Ripe with the stench of exhaust fumes and gas,
As the choir lines up for the 10 o'clock mass,
While the brokers all scream, at a packed stock exchange,
As the veterans in wheelchairs sit begging for change,
That's life in the jungle, it's just a big game,
But remember you're playing, lest you go insane.
Mar 24, 2015
Mar 24, 2015 at 11:01 PM UTC
Today's world is not as it seems,
Cancer now comes in packs of twenty
And our idea of food is a burger with twenty-percent meat,
And NO-ONE cares or thinks for themself
Ones worth is measured only in wealth
The children are hungry,
Our veterans ignored
Hunger for money and lust for oil brought us war,
Ukraine in "crisis" and MH370 missing,
The C.I.A. funded Isis we just won't believe it,
So put down the phone and open your eyes,
Realize
Real Eyes
Real Lies
It shouldn't take a genius to see this
So I will not forgive,
I'll NEVER forget,
about 9/11 or Israel's daily blank check
Because we fund their wars with Gaza and more
We bomb the Mosques,hospitals and more
We've been deceived,shammed,tricked and lied to,
So ask yourself,who am I?
Who are you?
We're the awoken ones with SO much left to do
Open your eyes and simply wake
Wake the **** up for our children's sake
Sometimes I just think about things,
What will our children's future bring?
Will there be one at all or won't it exist?
Open your eyes
Realize
And think about it
Aug 11, 2014
Aug 11, 2014 at 6:32 PM UTC
A Few lines etched where no words give weight.
Good riddance say the veterans
Of a nation gone sour with grief
Like a lemon slice evaporating onto the tongue of the sick.
But when the young yearn for White Nights,
The old claim they are blinding lights to the cold sugary substance
That supplants an easy path.
The bullithole rush of renewal and loneliness and progress thwarted and abandoned,
Inertia seeping through
Into a cold summer's day.
Between the cursing slant of sleek paved roadstrips,
And the burning briars that thresh the border's haunt,
What is picture postcard emerald
Is in that same instance soviet architect gray.
These are the sleepers bereft of the dream
whose twenty-five stories high
or ghost estates
are domes to cast out the howling banshees, those suffrage of the real
to be re-thought as mere props which surround the haloed glowing screen.
So sheen the Motherland glows in untarnished eyes
Familiar solely with glass behemoths parading with their reflections
In grey water-drizzled streets,
Only to be replaced by iridescent rainbows that foster a hope.
A hope that was packaged and sold two decades back
Since it was not worth carrying into the New World.
The water-trough falls to where the electric line banishes, connects a spike,
"rejuvenate the breakfast table"-some far-off God reports, Hades still waiting,
Intel-chip Blue, epiphany at the gates.
Jun 11, 2012
Jun 11, 2012 at 9:02 AM UTC
I hurt
I think it's loss and disappointment from
"Hopes" that were never born,
Which leaves me so forlorn.
Oh, and I cry
almost every day now
and I sigh,
then he always asks why....
The pain in my heart,
Why does it go so deep?
the way I weep;
I grieve so hard,
they say I even call & cry in my sleep.
Pictures in my mind of children at play
a dream, a hope, never to be.
My grandfathers were veterans of war, they say.
Agent orange says "one out of four" you see.
Uncle Sam says "no compensation" for me,
No big family to be all around me.
I think I'll give up on me,
sometimes....
"Please make it go away!" I say,
he can't,
and so he turns away.
Our future we cannot see,
afraid to dream,
afraid for me.
Going through the motions,
trying to do what's right.
Tried all the magic potions,
but too much DNA's twisted up too tight.
Now I'm hurtin and bleedin all of the time!
Doctor says its gotta go, this womb of mine.
Adenomyosis, got into me, says I'll be fine.
But, no more babies! don't you see
I was not finished with my family!
I dont want to, but I know
I gotta go.
Now its gone,
still PMS-ing
Now I'm not healin' right!
Its depressing.....
8 weeks now, still not released
and the mourning has not eased
Anger abounds when i awake
but I can't eat,
so then I shake.
So I just cry,
and blessed be,
ask God, Jesus and the angels
to have mercy on me
Oct 25, 2014
Oct 25, 2014 at 8:05 PM UTC
You open to me
a little,
then grow afraid
and close again,
a small boy
fearing to be hurt,
a toe stubbed
in the dark,
a finger cut
on paper.
I think I am free
of fears,
enraptured, abandoned
to the call
of the Bacchae,
my own siren,
tied to my own
mast,
both Circe
and her swine.
But I too
am afraid:
I know where
life leads.
The impulse
to join,
to confess all,
is followed
by the impulse
to renounce,
and love--
imperishable love--
must die,
in order
to be reborn.
We come
to each other
tentatively,
veterans of other
wars,
divorce warrants
in our hands
which we would beat
into blossoms.
But blossoms
will not withstand
our beatings.
We come
to each other
with hope
in our hands--
the very thing
Pandora kept
in her casket
when all the ills
and woes of the world
escaped.
4.8k
It was hard to miss Jerry
in the corner
holding court
over the bran muffin.
Flurries of judgement and wisdom
flying across coffee dappled pages
as he sentenced a large cup of
Paruvian Dark Roast
to be ******
7 am Dan never flinched
steeling his tenured chair at
a spot one section of stir sticks away
calculably just out of reach
of the regularly scheduled tantrum.
An auburn-haired newbie
fanes camoflage
peeking over two pages of Obituaries
she never intended to read.
Her raised and nearly detached eyebrows
hover above the dateline like a magic trick.
And on every table fall
scattered leaves
of press print trees
unsorted and littered with intent
by careless absorbers of trivia.
Disconnected
ear-budded
footnotes of humanity
see nothing
hear nothing
using the disarrayed World News as
enormous coasters
unmoved by hyper-ventilating compulsives
pushing panic buttons through
desperate quests to uncover
one alphabetically organized set
of local news.
Of the papers not strewn
the remnant holds anxious
on a distant wall
a throng of flopping
rabbit-eared
step children
dangling precariously
from unaccomodating magazine racks
like smoky orphans from
windows in a fiery building.
Disordered.
Disrespected.
Discarded...words are
Jews in the holocaust.
Death of a voice.
We are irreverent in our silence
diminishing genius through apathy
put off by the imposition to be challenged
choosing disposable principles
above responsible knowledge.
Everything is disposable - cameras, cars,
relationships, loyalty, babies...and wisdom -
crumpling Pulitzer prize authors
and discarding WW2 veterans
just to get to the cartoons.
Apr 30, 2014
Apr 30, 2014 at 11:15 PM UTC
A Few lines etched where no words give weight.
Good riddance say the veterans
Of a nation gone sour with grief
Like a lemon slice evaporating onto the tongue of the sick.
But when the young yearn for White Nights,
The old claim they are blinding lights to the cold sugary substance
That supplants an easy path.
The bullithole rush of renewal and lonliness and progress thwarted and abandoned,
Inertia seeping through
Into a cold summer's day.
Between the cursing slant of sleek paved roadstrips,
And the burning briars that thresh the border's haunt,
What is picture postcard emerald
Is in that same instance soviet architect gray.
These are the sleepers bereft of the dream
whose twenty-five stories high
or ghost estates
are domes to cast out the howling banshees,those suffrage of the real
to be re-thought as mere props which surround the haloed glowing screen.
So sheen the Motherland glows in untarnished eyes
Familiar solely with glass behemoths parading with their reflections
In grey water-drizzled streets,
Only to be replaced by iridescent rainbows that foster a hope.
A hope that was packaged and sold two decades back
Since it was not worth carrying into the New World.
The water-trough delving where the electric line banishes,connects a spike,
"rejuvenate the breakfast table"-some far-off God reports, Hades still waiting,
Intel-chip Blue, epiphany at the gates.
Jun 12, 2012
Jun 12, 2012 at 5:24 AM UTC
Five minute street artists
and insomnia mongers.
****** drunk blondes
and finger snapping phat booties.
Street geniuses
bred by Machiavellian philosophies
cypher dreams over tokes
of marijuana smoke.
Color worshipping narcotic traffickers,
and bread winners
parole corners
sporting fitted caps and twisting fingers.
Senile war veterans
beg for change in cardboard boxes
from the American dreams
they afforded.
Hard workers with every ethnicity
molded into each pore of their face,
rub shoulders with tourists at traffic stops
barely escaping tires crushing their feet.
Sartorial geniuses with no pants
switch hips in knock-off stellos heels,
selling the origin of the world on avenues
next to Arab Halal food.
Cooperate ties and blue collars chafe ***** on subways.
nodding in and out of Daily News articles
while oxygen blessed by asparagus ****
pump through their noses.
Summa *** laude number runners dictate economies
From sky-crapper offices,
And powered rain swallows their concrete each winter,
With no apologies.
Jun 2, 2011
Jun 2, 2011 at 11:01 PM UTC
Dedicated to combat veterans and PTSD sufferers, wherever they may be...thank you for your service...
An Enemy That Haunts My Mind...
In the middle of the night I lie in bed,
Fighting an enemy that’s in my head.
An enemy that’s always there,
An enemy that won’t play fair.
An enemy that haunts my mind,
An enemy that is not kind.
The price paid for doing good,
Of doing like I’m told I should.
Serving my country in time of war,
Who could ever ask for more?
And now even in my deepest dreams,
All I hear is the sound of screams.
Why was I the one to survive?
Why was I the one left alive?
I ask myself every night,
As I relive every fight.
God, please call me home,
Don’t leave me here all alone.
For when I thought the fight was won,
I’m finding the battle’s just begun.
A soldier who was trained to ****
Finds a battle that’s harder still.
Fighting an enemy I cannot see,
And finding out the enemy is me.
An enemy that haunts my mind,
An enemy that is not kind.
07-11-11.
Apr 23, 2015
Apr 23, 2015 at 1:41 AM UTC
Formerly known as the Departments of: State, Treasury, Justice, Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, Labor, Defense, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Transportation, Energy, Education, Veterans Affairs, and last but certainly not least, Homeland Security.
Jul 11, 2013
Jul 11, 2013 at 4:21 AM UTC
Psst
Hey man
You looking for a boost?
Some bud? Molly? *****
I gotch you
Let's be out
Let's look forward, shifting eyes
Thick blunts, welcome to The Court of Miracles
Where no ones ever dry and everyone's good
The whole place was flooded with music
Pounding, pulsing, entrancing
thump thump thump thump
Laser lights flashing neon colors
Multicolored creatures of night dancing to the whimsical noise
The DJ was young
Attentive to his machine that dispensed exuberant sensate explosions
Rocking back and forth, flipping switches, turning knobs
We are, we can, we will live forever
Then it all went silent and the whole place shot out with a feeling of anticipation
WE ARE IMMORTAL
BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM
The bass caused everyone of us to vibrate and pick up the vibrations of one another
Hey bro
Take this
Molly
Nerves become fervent
Now meet my other friend
Lucy
Mind is widened
Now you're candy flipping
Hippy tripping
We met a girl
Her dad was a record producer
She was way out there
She was out of her head
We met an artist
He used different types of wood
And carved shapes and patterns in to them
Then painted it with acrylics
Then smashed it with a sledge hammer
People bought it
He was brilliant
He was ******
I was dazzled
She tasted like *****
He tastes like cigarettes
***** devils
Looking for a time
I saw veterans from Iraq letting loose
Thank you
A sea of sweaty smiles going for miles
Under a baroque moon
Sleeveless shirts
Minuscule skirts
Beads, glow sticks
Unity
Altogether
Under one universe
Dedicated to this single moment
And what it means to us
One mind
Joined
For equal freedom
Apr 12, 2014
Apr 12, 2014 at 11:35 PM UTC
Tax the poor and reward the rich
This line should be reversed
But, the politicians always use this line
It's a line they have rehearsed
As soon as they are voted in
They give themselves a raise
When we question what they did this for
They just sit there in a daze
They use all sorts of doublespeak
To tell us all their reasons
For taxing poor and elderly
The rich are out of season
A few cents here, a nickel there
No one will notice that
While our old folks sit at home
Sharing tinned food with their cat
Tax the poor and reward the rich
This line should be reversed
But, the politicians always use this line
It's a line they have rehearsed
As soon as they are voted in
They give themselves a raise
When we question what they did this for
They just sit there in a daze
The veterans they are targets too
Their pensions get rolled back
They hit those who can't defend themselves
Or are too poor to fight back
They give out tax cuts to the rich
Big business gets the most
While our working poor are stuck at home
Finding new ways to serve toast
They sell our jobs and tax our lives
Until we're better dead
But then we can't afford to die
We've no place to lay our head
They sit in ivory towers
Looking down on those below
Wondering how to get more money in
How to make their pockets grow
The parties not in power
Try their best to make a change
But to do that, we need lots of help
Parliament must rearrange
The way the parties govern
The way they ***** the meek
There must be changes at the top
To help strengthen the weak
There's people on the system
Who worked hard and did their part
Now they can't afford an apple
Let alone the apple cart
Tax the poor and reward the rich
This line should be reversed
But, the politicians always use this line
It's a line they have rehearsed
As soon as they are voted in
They give themselves a raise
When we question what they did this for
They just sit there in a daze
So, at the next election
Don't just vote because you should
Go and vote for something different
Go and vote for something good
Because your parents vote one colour
And you choose to do that too
Is not a true democracy
You've a choice in what to do
If you're voting for the first time
Think real hard before you pick
All their promises look tasty
Until you give them a good lick
Remember how your grandpa
Said "It was much better when"
"We were treated fair and equally"
And it can be done again
So if Tax the poor and reward the rich
Is the motto that you choose
I hope that you'll rememer this
When you can't afford new shoes
The time to change what's wrong is now
Start giving money back
To those who can't afford to lose
The one's who fall between the crack
So tax the rich, reward the poor
Take the tax cuts all away
And make our seniors equal
Don't make them be the ones that pay.
May 13, 2012
May 13, 2012 at 7:46 PM UTC
I'm twenty seven years old
Not, old by any standard
But, in my world...I'm seven
Seven years removed from an IED
Seven years away from the day that changed me
Seven years into my new life
We were on a routine mission
If you can call anything in Khandahar
routine
Convoy escort, some press folks
A country singer and his band
And us....always us
We were Military Police
Bringing 'em in, taking 'em home
there we were,
Same trip, same road
same barren landscape
same potholes
same, same, same
Until November 4th, 2005
Nothing has been the same since then
I'm a Sargeant, Military Police
William Blankenship
Fort Hood, Texas...just a kid...until
We were on Operation Squire
routine....all routine
The first humvee hit an IED
flipped right in front of us
the bus of civilians, stopped
radio chatter like mad
Rocket fire took out the Stryker LAV
Blew it to bits
No survivors
We were pinned down
We didn't return fire
Couldn't....didn't know where to
And had to get the civilians to safety
We were only 2 miles from base
LAVs were on the road immediately
I don't remember much about it
Just, that it was routine
Started with the headaches
took about a month
Then, the nightmares
Sent me back home to get over it
To a Veterans Hospital in Texas
Still saw the humvee flip
Heard the screams
Saw the fire, and watched the explosion behind
And I wasn't sleeping anymore
Couldn't handle bright lights for a time
Still can't, but not as bad
Doctors said it was PTSD
I said, "you think?"
What else could it be
Two years they kept me in there
Two years I saw them die
Then...they hooked me up with a service dog
New program they said
He'd keep me relaxed
I couldn't take care of myself
And now, they want me to have a dog
I said, I'd try it...but no guarantees
Said his name was Squire
funny....I knew that name from somewhere
But, couldn't remember where
Big, oafish, Newf he was
Like a small fridge with hair
And big, brown eyes
Squire....
First day he just sat and looked at me
Waited until I started to move
And he moved with me
Came over, and pushed his head under my hand
It's been that way ever since
I move, he moves
I eat, he eats three times as much
We bonded pretty quick
I still get the dreams,
but, Squire knows and he's there
Under my hand, calming me down
That's all he does, calms me down
He doesn't take away the dreams
But, he helps
I don't know how
But, he helps
They still die, and I still scream
But, not as often
Just routine....
Nov 7, 2012
Nov 7, 2012 at 4:29 PM UTC
I saw the smooth hands of children grow calloused,
sanded by the empty hopes
that the cold has whittled down and sharpened into crucifixion nails.
Dragging their feet through broken glass and street waste, one shoe one sock,
I thought they were just urban children, or the ones
in malaria countries. But I see them stagger now, older, defeated
baring their bodies and chewing on their brains, teaching the little ones
how to polish shoes and hide in alleys that smell like **** and assault.
That one looks like me, his guardian about my size, so I pull my coat closer.
I recognize him from school in the smell of unwashed hair and the gurgle of
A self-digesting gut, nothing to soak up the acid that burns his throat.
I watched the world ******* them into hunched shoulders and boney legs
that have forgotten how to hug and run, trapping them in a constant state of shuffling
to the music of moans and cries for help. They come together in an urchin clan underneath bridges and on the exit ramps of highways.
Prophets of the future clutching at signs about war and veterans, the bad economy and the children they can’t feed.
Ten dollars to the one with the mut. Offer him a smoke.
Politicians act like clean-up crews, counting them like statistics;
This one is gone, the one on Brown street died,
We got rid of the one looking for cans in the student neighborhood.
Charity elevates them into a an opportunity—
A little money to the unfortunate is like bleach for your soul. Just enough
to get the smell of affair out of your hair, or to clean up the poison in your veins.
God helps the outcasts; five dollars ought to do it.
I shudder at our similarities. Brown hair, brown eyes, smart.
His sign ignores no rules of grammar and deserve credit for its precise calligraphy,
The dog at his side is ***** and worn like the stuffed toy
I covet from the nights in my crib—the same. He is a victim of people, I am a victim of people
Both someone’s child, both like dogs.
I watch as he turns into a younger man, and then an old man, and then a woman,
A child with no shoes and crucified hands, the boy in my class with eyes that devour.
I walk home, wondering what kind of charity will save me from myself.
And that is the problem.
Jan 14, 2014
Jan 14, 2014 at 12:10 AM UTC
It's been over forty years,
but I still feel the tears from
thirteen months of combat in
a no - win situation called
Vietnam. The years just keep passing
by, and still many Vietnam
Veterans die, and no one wants
to admit why.
The anger and saddness is
still there and what makes it
worse is a society that acts
as if they care, acting like
they know where we had to go
and what we had to do, and
now they just stare.
Our tears flow for our brothers
whose names are on that Wall,
the ones who answered the call
and gave all.
It is American tradition to honor
War Veterans, but they shut the
door on us and some just can't
forget.
For some better late than never,
but for me it just won't go away.
Now a whole new generation
in a different era thinks a simple
" welcome home " will do. A
generation that is blind to what
went on, and the the injustice
that we were served,
a generation that looks the other
way when the homeless living on
the street try to speak .
A generation that ignores the number of
Vietnam Veterans taking their
own lives every day.
The shock of this is so much,
I just don't know what to say.
Some of us choose to live another
day and this new generation
honoring us needs to know
that we will not just go away and
that they will have to deal with
us someday, giving more than
just a " welcome home" that
comes a little late, and they need
to know why our minds are in such
a f*^k^d up state.
Jon York USMC Vietnam 1969 -70
,
Nov 13, 2010
Nov 13, 2010 at 11:30 PM UTC
There you are, structure, bones
standing tall in the sunlight
all of the personality drained away.
Oh, goodbye to that twinkle in your eye
Goodbye to that thing we couldn't put our fingers on, that thing that sparked passion
Because all you are now, is a skeleton.
A skeleton with so many ghosts, war veterans, teachers and teenage girls that I used to know,
even me.
That old version of me who skipped, smiled and run her fingers through her hair
she dances through the corridors when no-one else is there.
Along they came. Dress you up, ready for business. That's one thing I learned from this, patch yourself up, make yourself look okay and no-one will realise how broken you are. No.
No, they won't notice the graffiti marks of those who have been,
on your skin.
No, they won't notice those damp patches,
in the corner,
of your eye.
They didn't notice how your ribs creaked as you let out a sigh,
your final goodbye.
They certainly didn't notice when you closed your eyes to die,
my skeleton...
I remember when you comforted me from the world with soft, warm arms and friendly words.
I remembered how you nurtured us and watched us grow.
A loving kiss on the cheek and off we go, but I couldn't let you go.
So here I stayed to watch you drift away with each passing day as they measured your waist,
for the suit.
Pull it in tighter.
A stitch here,
a stitch there.
Tighter.
Iron out the crease.
Tighter.
No room to breathe.
The suit may not cover your face, but it is a mask, covering up mistakes.
The mistake of your missing heart, the drive, the ambition.
The mistake of your missing eyes, seeing goodness in the world, giving beauty to the hopeless.
And the mistake of your missing smile, inspiration for lost souls trying to find their way home.
But you, you were home to me, my skeleton.
Now however much you lose or decay, you will never go away.
You will always be there, a ghost in my memory.
My loving skeleton who is now in a suit.
Dec 2, 2013
Dec 2, 2013 at 6:24 AM UTC
"Soldiers Heart"
Two brothers on their way
one wore blue
and
one wore gray
one came home
one stayed behind
one mother mourns
on a November's day.
212,938
bled and died
on
American soil.
"Irritable Heart"
14 years in the Philippines
far too many days
4200 died
so many miles away.
"Shell Shock"
Johnny got his gun
alive in the tomb
of his mind
no eyes
no ears
no arms
no legs
a beating heart
an active mind
alive
with memories and sensations
Paths of Glory
leads
the way
and 53,402 stay
while one came home.
"Battle Fatigue"
291,557
perished.
Nagasaki got its bomb
six million died
before our fathers and grandfathers
liberated them.
To the 38th Parallel
we did go
where old soldiers
never die
they just fade away
with
time.
33,746 died.
"Stress Response Syndrome"
Apocalypse Now
Jacob had his ladder
in
the jungles of Vietnam
Full Metal Jacket
Born in the USA
homeless veterans
now aged still pay today
while 47,424
lay in their graves.
"Post Traumatic Stress Disorder"
My daughter
my son-in-law
bring it all
back home to me
Navy Medics
seven years
they traveled with the Marines
picking up the pieces
as they went their way
many too many trips
for all those young
troops
now we are
seeing
their heroism
proceeding
despite being afraid
a price
dearly
we all pay.
5,282 and still counting.
Nov 11, 2014
Nov 11, 2014 at 11:09 AM UTC
In Silence
The English ex SAS Special Forces member went to the Ukraine to fight. He travelled light and took just a small back pack and a head full of skills. A gun was a gun and a bayonet a bayonet. He was trained to use most things as weapon especially military articles.
He decided to go to the Ukraine after the Russians invaded proper in early 2022. The Ukrainian Army took him to a holding facility where they vetted him. This took three days. Included was basic close combat skills and weapons use.
He excelled and was given a job, being sent to a forward artillery position with a dozen other foreign troops to protect it. The SAS man was in charge and most men and the single girl spoke English. All understood military commands and signals. All were veterans from either conscript or professional armies.
Each was here for their own reasons and all disliked either what Russia had done or Russians themselves. The English SAS member had killed several Muslim terrorists from Daesh and al Qaeda in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now he looked forward to fighting and killing some Russians, officers if possible. After being in the Ukraine six days he was on the front line leading his first patrol. This was better than being a bouncer in a Manchester night club!
The SAS guy ordered his men to only use bayonets as they silently crept to a Russian fox hole a mile away. He wanted blood and the rush of combat, of killing. There was the trench and a single sentry, asleep. He would knife him himself. Then his squad would ****** the rest and take back any weapons, maps or documents. He spoke four languages including Russian. Any Intel was good for his bosses though. Here we go! There’s the sleeping sentry. Gently now, he must die in silence…
Mar 20, 2022
Mar 20, 2022 at 5:33 PM UTC