A Poem - Viet Nam

A Poem [ Viet Nam] By Patrick Kelly The last minutes of evening yields to the moon’s shadowed night, giving me a few moments to nibble the last of my “Band Of Brothers,” of boned chicken, cheese and crackers before I throw the empty cans to join the others in my little trash pile. nothing left for the rats. The twinkle of stars touch and caress the rice paddy in pure silence. A board game, where lives are played out on a stage among many actors. Where silent nights are ambushed by flares shooting up, only to descend in lazy, floating spears of light, awaking each contestant, in rapid flashes and sound. Gunships filling the air with lead, tracing their paths in bouncing streaks and Helicopters with their figure 8 patterns spewing death, rockets streaking through the night, stopping the birds in their flight, tracers racers back and forth daring to run into each other, someone walked into an ambush, then back to silence. We are jealous of our war and have been cut out again with “Stand Down.” Then there’s that one little tracer shooting up like a little heal biter shaking its puny paw at his antagonists. I think nothing of my trash or that fire- fight carried out on these acres of “No Man’s Land,” under a moon and scattered clouds. We have become jealous of our war, we were left out again. I think nothing of the blood spent. I see, I hear, I do not speak. Another body count to send to the folks back home of our success.