When We Were Sailors - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

When We Were Sailors

To the tune of Detroit Diesels

When we were sailors we seldom thought about
Being sailors. We thought about, well, girls
And happenin’ tunes from AFVN
‘Way down the river in happenin’ Saigon

We thought about cars and beaches and girls
And would a swing ship bring any mail today
In big red nylon sacks of envelopes
Love postmarked in a fantasy, The World

We thought about autumn and home and girls
While sandbag stacking and C-Rat snacking
We thought about being clean and dry again
While pooping and snooping in Cambodia

When we were sailors we thought about our pals
And what they were, and who
                                                   before the dust-offs flew

Memorial Day II: Bad Morning, Viet-Nam - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.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 thin 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.