Long Warnight Poems
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(for those in Kwangju: May 18, 1980)*
after Dante
Taking this peach within the mouth, the tongue
hovers around its sunset skin like a lover
and its Sappho sweet bite is heaven. A song
of honeysuckled rivers is like your
kiss… The night is in July. At once
Platonic love is redemption or
when the world is beyond our Kwangju…Please
let the streets be freed from anticipation
of the bayonet and gun… Let litter seize
this street or any avenue… Plan
my kiss and we will be happy and free.
The night is the peach---the dead sun…
Recall the dress you wore as a weapon, me
wearing---I forgot… Your raven hair, soft
yet sharp by its embroidery
of strands being held by one silver pin. The left
hand of God and right hands of angels
must have done it… It was my dry throat
drinking from Styx River which made the chills
even more pronounced at the sight of you.
The dress’ print was you. It was petals
of prints within splotches of orange, gold, red, too…
and white--- bandages… Horrible bandages.
I’m wearing black/white. Suddenly we choose
to hug underneath those flickering pages
of streetlights… we an arrow’s color shot through bodies---Rage…
*Excerpted from Chalmers Johnson’s Blowback : The Costs and Consequences of the
American Empire: “General Chun did not wait long after talking with Gleysteen (US
Ambassador to South Korea) to complete the coup d’etat he had begun the previous
December…On May 18, 1980, a few hundred demonstrators in Kwangju took to the streets to
protest the imposition of martial law. They were met by the paratroopers of the 7th Brigade
of the Korean special forces, known as the “black berets,” who had a well known reputation
for brutality going back to their service on the American side in the Vietnam War…Gleysteen
wrote, “Rumors reaching Seoul of Kwangju rioting say special forces used fixed bayonets and
inflicted many casualties on students… Some in Kwangju are reported to have said that
troops are being more ruthless than North Koreans ever were.” [When asked of the decision]
Gleysteen replied, “I grant it was the controversial decision, but it was the correct one. Do I
regret? I don’t think so.” (112-113)
I watched him shake his hand
And say a gruff goodbye
To his beloved grandson.
Old soldiers do not cry.
He fiercely rubbed his eyes
To stop unmanly tears
As he recalled that other war
From those now long past years.
If old men could go to war
He would gladly take the place
Of this young lad without a clue
Of what he is to face.
He recalls himself, the innocent,
Proudly going off to war
To fight Hitler and his cronies,
Back in Nineteen Forty-Four.
He arrived there just in time
In the battles to indulge
In the most desperate fighting
The Big Battle of the Bulge.
Though he lost so many buddies,
He somehow stayed alive
Until the bullet with his name
In Nineteen Forty-Five.
He felt his life-blood flowing.
All he could do was wait
For the pick-up crew to come for him.
He hoped they weren't too late.
They came too late to save his leg.
Doctors said that it must go.
For him the war was over,
At least they told him so.
But he kept right on fighting
Every night in his dark dreams.
He could see the bullets fllying
And could hear his comrade's screams.
He was glad to have his Mary
Who held him in her arms
And told him it was over
And soothed him with her charms.
He and Mary had two daughters.
They weren't blessed with a son.
Somehow he didn't mind because
He need not worry over one
Who like him would have to go
To fight another mindless war.
At last the nightmares ended.
He was at peace once more.
His pride was in this grandson
The son he never had,
This boy who said he wanted
To be like his old granddad.
With one last wave he limped away
With his Mary by his side.
His nightmares had not ended.
That night the old man cried.
Buy Joyce Johnson
In the far off distance the cannons make their report,
As we huddle in groups to show our support.
Blindly attacked, all we can do is to try to hit back,
Hiding in light, it’s at night when we assume our attack.
Outnumbered and outgunned since the government took nearly every one,
They made it illegal for citizens to possess any type of gun.
But some held on and it was a good thing that they did,
As the enemy infiltrated our borders and shores we retrieved them from where they were hid.
There is no Geneva Convention, and no rules to this war,
Brutality and chaos have been our strongest weapon so far.
This was the way it was given to us, so reverse play is fair don’t you see,
They wanted to take our freedom but that is something you won’t take from me.
It was like a horror movie that night that seems so long ago,
In the middle of the night it started with no warning you know.
Loud noise and confusion as mortars and rifle fire entered our peaceful little town,
People running and screaming and for no reason being mercilessly shot down.
9-11 was just a testing of the waters to see how we would react,
As they put together their plan for this unholy attack.
Our country has been divided and our resources are few,
But we’ll fight to our death, that’s all that’s left for me and for you!
All night the guns
Like barking dogs would not go to sleep
All night the mothers heart
Roamed weeping the sinister streets
And still the air explodes
Like fourth of July
Or even Christmas
When the heart is silent most of all
The fireworks like stars explode
As if some longing
Some macabre need
Leaving trenches where soldiers bleed
Where mines maim the promise of tomorrow
And children become fragments of humanity
Limbless and listless
Against the merchants of ammunition
Guns shipped in cradles of greed
Like unwanted medication
Or some foul chemical for unwanted weed
In the Third World ghetto
A child can have no dream
Until the city sleeps
Until the manufacturers
Of wars and the instruments of death
Have crumbled in a heap
To weep
On the still form of a personal loss
A child dead its own blood
A bitter cost
For power that death still turn to dross
All the guns
Angrier than our butchered sleep
Through glottoral cordite weep.
I cannot stand the guns
My soul for silence yearns
Will someone blot out that noise, please
The innocent weeping without conscience
Stop them where they make them
Collect them where they ship them
Ban them where they use them
Destroy them
I cannot stand the guns
All night barking like mad dogs
Against the peace of sleep.
Form:
The night sky is a vibrant green with a yellow haze,
Ever since the dropping of the bombs there is no more blue for us to gaze.
The fields lay barren, no crops can they produce, it’s like a dessert waste,
Water is tainted with mercury and chromium and you dare not taste.
Those that survived that horrid attack,
Wish now they had been in the epi-center as the bomb blast cracked.
There is no life left just this unfruitful and chaotic existence,
Scavenging has become our way of surviving with least resistance.
What good was gained that fateful night,
That deafening sound, that blinding light.
No law is left just total anarchy, and the strong will to live,
No more love thy neighbor, you only take you do not give.
Fires burned for months till there was nothing left to fuel their flames,
I wonder who was the one to embrace these deadly games.
To the victor goes the spoils, well that is all there is,
Nothing but death and ruin since the night that firecracker fizzed.
No machinery has worked since that mighty day,
Something to do with electro magnetics is what I’ve heard some people say.
Well it shouldn’t take much longer for our food and water supply to come to an end,
Then it’s a painful way to die with no way to fend.
Form:
Christmas Rebels
It was about a weak
After that night walk
The unknown dangers,
Made known, turned me weak,
I was managing myself,
After my heart was pulled,
From where it sank,
I was yet in the oven,
Of my haven,
To dry up the coldness,
And the wetness,
Of that fearful night loneliness,
Today is Christmas,
The whole mass,
Was joyous,
Every home, glorious,
Meat was plenteous,
Rice and beans.
Was every homes means,
Children bouncing in,
New goat skin jackets,
Mother’s dressed in costly
Beads and all the way,
Father leads.
For Christmas had taking over,
Taking over the African Shrine,
It supplied a joyous sunshine.
Our pockets were full of cowries,
Like a goldmine,
Happiness was mine,
For the usual war seemed
To be hidden, and our teethes where like,
“Forever opened”.
Oh! Joyful, blissful, plentiful Christmas.
Providing joy each time it surface,
But joy has a slender waist that breaks so soon.
Christmas night came, so we visited
Our beds as night rang it’s bell,
(To be continued in the next, same Poem).
The night deepens her charms
On the threshold the bells toll
Shadows follow her treads
Evading hushed moonlight sheen.
Yonder bellows the wind
Werewolf’s sniff their clans call
Clouds play hide and seek
Terror the night she in her minks:
Merge shape shifter moves in stealth
Foot print to feline teen.
She will learn to know freedom
In Bear hugs and captor winks.
Desperation within her slips
Falter, dodge stare, in my skills.
Victim of vampires, hot blooded breed
She says showing her links
Fangs arch, body surge strengthen
Arms grip, erosion in her wills.
Soaked eyes fill with tears
I chain upper limbs see her blink
Crafty in smiles they pierce my heart
She weaken me in frills
Transgress into paths of blood luster
Neck clasp for her to pink:
Rages, fumes as face mask lock
Collar her necks poison tilt.
When one sits on the moor at this Culloden place
Where the Clans of the Tartan lay in deathly deface
On many a night through the following years
Families would gather, and continue their tears
If you listen carefully you can still hear their screams
Run through so young ending their freedom of dreams
When one sits on the moor at this Culloden place
Where a proud nation fell, nearly disappearing without trace
On many a night through the following years
From every nook and cranny we would rise again without fear
If you listen carefully you can still hear their screams
We are now a nation so proud, their tears to esteem
http://www.thehighlanderspoems.com/scotland.php
I'm not the hero you make me out to be
I haven't lost any friends
No one has been saved because of me
I'm not running out in the trenches
Or wandering the war torn streets
I haven't heard the bombs hit the base
Laid awake at night and pray for gods grace
My life's never been threatened
I've never wondered if today would be my last
I've never lost a brother in my hands
Laid down at night on the soft cold sand
Or come back to a home to the ones I love
Come back changed from the sights I've seen
And live with a burden that lasts a lifetime
You may think I'm a hero, but I disagree
No, I'm not a hero to me...?