For 11/11, soldiers' poems of MACV (and interstitial matter):
I can feel traces of my heart / leaving wet rivers / down my manly cheeks.
∞
Stunned now / angry / helpless / bits of torn paper beside / empty red mailbag.
∞
So / You averted looking directly / at their eyes / (That last graveyard / for their fears)
∞
It's getting hard to talk to you, / You don't seem to communicate; / You get upset too easily, / I only asked what it was really like.
∞ (Previously, previously)
posted on Nov 11, 2007 - View this thread

"Next, have those who lost legs crawl forward and neatly/ stack them. Then bowl the skull of your best killed buddy/ down the aisle / Finally, have the blind push the quadruplegics forward / (they will have knives in their teeth to give to the legislators / to use on themselves). We leave."

Or: "Today you reached retirement/ with a disturbed and primal conscience / .... / Drunk and stoned, down in your worst / moment, you subpoenaed yourself / into believing the mission / was more important than the man."

Or: "Terrified, by the death grins. / Afraid, I'll be one of the dead. / Wondering, why did I ever think, / it wouldn't be as bad as they said?"

Soldiers' stories told in the veterans' poetry, from the archives of the Viet Nam Generation Journal.
posted on Mar 20, 2006 - View this thread