Letter From Vietnam
A quivering shadow shrouding a clouded pane
Shared pain scribbled in the doleful rain
Hollow words that broker heartache and disdain
A sorrowful whistle emanating from a distant train
Poorly trained recruits struggling above the furor to remain
Stridently striving nation's honor to uphold; but only vitriol,
criticism obtain
Sacrificial fodder sheared of its free-flowing mane
Pared of hope; left only with the incalculable strain
Stationed in a humid hovel that every ounce of stamina doth drain
Surrounded by enemies who fealty and allegiance feign
Fighting to defend a people tethered to a weak, tenuous chain
Serving under commanders who constantly seek fallow grounds to
regain
Sacrificial lambs whose blood the unforgiving terrain doth stain
Seeking a wily, amorphous foe in a borderless territory to contain
Reconnoitering through boundless jungles that equally beauty and
poison contain
Searching for 'guerillas in the mist', but only marauders and
malcontents detain
Scouring villages for contraband; arbitrary jury distributing pain
Showered with toxic chemicals that clear our paths but our lungs
restrain
Conditioned to violence as barbaric, torture devices many
comrades have slain
Transporting the liberal vices of burgeoning social revolution to a
frugaler domain
Satiating the lonely days; secluded nights with: booze, barbiturates
and cocaine
Surviving a hostile conflict where sanity seemed to constantly ebb
then wane
Trite conscripts whose epitaph will read, 'Every battle objective
gained, but the national will could not retain'.
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