Best Saigon Poems

We lived in Saigon many, many moons ago
Of which I have a tale to share
About a pair of my husband boots 
His favourites…. the ones he loved to wear

A shoe shiner came to the work office
A teenage boy who looked very poor
Walked into the office...

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Down and Out in Saigon

Southeast Asia, and Mexico
 has always attracted 
A certain type of westerner
The down and out 

On a down word spiral
Why?
Relatively cheap to live
Lots of part-time gigs

Teaching English
Or other things
Cheap Booze, drugs, sex
Readily available


Places to stay
Dirt cheap
And no one needs 
To sleep...

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GIRL OF SAIGON - THE MORNING AFTER
You are the night and morning after.
Sunrise is playing in your hair,
I swear your eyes are telling me lies,
I know you kill but I don't care.

Out in the bush, I'd recognize
your look of death staring at me,
to soon to...

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GIRL OF SAIGON
I've seen death every day in a tropical rain,
I could tell you about it, but I can't take the pain.

There's a path through the bush it's all tainted and red,
from the blood of believers, who were right in their head.

I've killed fathers and...

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GIRL OF SAIGON
I've seen death every day in a tropical rain,
I could tell you about it, but I can't take the pain.

There's a path through the bush it's all tainted and red,
from the blood of believers, who were right in their head.

I've killed fathers and...

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You are something
Beyond classification or description.
Something sensory.
Something
Warm, sweet, 
Rich, dark, 
Smoke and fire, 
Softened spice, 
Sugared rust, 
Dusted copper,
Wood, bark, 
Like you grew from the ground
Or were mined from the red earth.
Just like Saigon Cinnamon....

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and I walked along Hai Ba Trung looking
for peace and reconciliation but only found 
whores and foodsellers
and the former shouted,"come in sir!",
and the latter spilt grease on to the sidewalk
and paid no attention the the swayers

so I shouted back, "please no I'm gay",
hoping my lie...

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Saigon 2019


Vibrant, vivid, exciting
A city on the move
Becoming a world-class city
Yet still with a Saigon swagger

Wandering the streets
Dodging the traffic
Admiring the women
Enjoying the food

Saigon enters my heart
And I know that I will be back
This city is growing on me
Reminds me of Korea 

One hopes that...

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Saigon 1995

Saigon 1995

In 1995 
I was one of the first American tourists
Allowed into Vietnam
To freely wander about

Tourism was at its infancy
And Saigon was chaotic
Wild and crazy
Traffic was insane

There were few tourism sites
Few hotels
Few guest houses
And not too many restaurants

The food was good
We saw the war...

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veebdosa
World Of War:Vietnam

GIRL OF SAIGON
I've seen death every day in a tropical rain,
I could tell you about it, but I can't take the pain.

There's a path through the bush it's all tainted and red,
from the blood of believers, who were right in their head.

I've killed...

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ex-pilot
watches Saigon fall
disgusted...

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Old ghosts wandering the streets of old Saigon
Lost spirits of the dead
Died during the endless wars  
Ghostly apparitions around every corner

Here was Kilroy 
and his gang of soldiers
Over there were the Viet Cong 
Waiting to kill them

Saigon is filled with memories like that
Terrible times...

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Every morning
I have gone out for Vietnamese coffee

At a sidewalk café
Down the ally from our AIRBNB

The owner is a pleasant middle age woman
Who for some reason likes us

She smiles at us
Greets us in Vietnamese

She does  not understand English
Or Korean

And I wonder why

Why was there...

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There is an old Vietnamese lady
In the neighborhood

Obviously senile
But everyone knows her

And watches over her
To make sure 

She stays out of traffic
And out of trouble

She talks to everyone
But no one seems to understand

What she is babbling 
on about

They smile at her
And she smiles back

And she...

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Crawling down the tunnels
Of Chu Chi
I could almost imagine
The Viet Kong guerillas 

Hiding deep under the tunnels
As the land above is turned
Into a temporary dessert 

With the vegetation burned off
By napalm and agent orange

The Viet Kong creep out at night
Stealing onto the bases
Stealing weapons, food,...

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