Monday, May 25, 2020

Bad Morning, Viet-Nam - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Bad Morning, Viet-Nam

No music calls a teenager to war;
There is no American Bandstand of death,
No bugles sound a glorious John Wayne charge
For corpses floating down the Vam Co Tay

No rockin’ sounds for all the bodies bagged
No “Gerry Owen” to accompany
Obscene screams in the hot, rain-rotting night.
Bullets do not whiz. Mortars do not crump.

There is no rattle of musketry.
The racket and the horror are concussive.
Men – boys, really – do not choose to die,
“Willingly sacrifice their lives,” that lie

They just writhe in blood, on a gunboat deck
Painted to Navy specifications.


from The Road to Magdalena, 2012

1 comment:

Verlie Burroughs said...

Thanks for keeping a record Poet.