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Best Poems Written by Jw Nugent

Below are the all-time best Jw Nugent poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

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Christmas In the Plain of Reeds

CHRISTMAS IN THE PLAIN OF REEDS

Three on isolated holiday;
Cambodia on the horizon.
The reeds sway in the wind,
rippling like drifting snow,
their touch a ringing bell.
So close to the Border,
so far from Christmas,
so far from home.

.

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Changing of Years

CHANGING OF YEARS

The darkness overwhelms
sitting on an old com tower
well into the Plain of Reeds
watching for enemy movement
Using bunkers of a firebase
long deserted and long rotted
two bunkers remain intact
The ARVN are very frightened
their bunker re-enforced
We three not paying attention 
our bunker is the old TOC
holes show partial damage 
openings are our escape route
A canal is just below me
having a deep and fast current
yet moving with the ocean tides
even this close to Cambodia
The last second of this year
the night lights up with flares
a thin horizon in the distance
colour of base camps reflected
from Tay Ninh around to My Tho
A near perfect half circle projected
light from far away soldiers 
they paint a glimpse of civilisation
an impossible distance from us
the world feels light years away
I notice the darkness around us
we are outside the circle of light
outside every thing we know
Our location an envelope of space
infinitely stretching beyond hope
The flares now lost in a new year
darkness now melded together.  
our darkness is so much deeper
Our universe of this nothingness 
drawing those very dark thoughts
the World is gone and home gone
So hard to breathe this nothingness
I feel darkness penetrate my soul
inevitably the dark will overwhelm
will hold me regardless of new light
the darkness held forever in my soul

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Ptsd

PTSD

My nightmares are violent;
rifle jammed frustratingly dead,
broken stock useless as a club,
only a k-bar knife and free hand
reaching for those darting figures
leaping over my fighting hole.

The night terrors are far worse;
bolting upright out of deep sleep
screaming from hidden memories,
violence lost in the awakening,
these trauma never remembered
hidden so very deep in my psych.

My days and nights span endlessly
while sitting alone in an empty room,
sightless but seeing forty years ago,
no longer living in the relevant present
the past becomes my personal quagmire;
a Hell beyond address never resolved.
Coping with a forced duality of life
accomplishments become meaningless,
every success is infused with doubt,
past decisions are seen in darkness
and the future unnecessary unwanted,
the value of my life feels wasted.

Old thoughts and desires surface,
my death in Vietnam more merciful.
I lived while more deserving men died
those who may have avoided a faulty life
avoiding a repressed and cloistered mind;
how these feelings echo among Veterans.

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Essay On Drums

ESSAY ON DRUMS

The drum sounds slowly its cadence
the beat, beat, beat marks a march
and through the air reverberates.

The tramp of a company at quick time,
arms pumping with machine precision,
a rigid jerky movement of elbows.

The thump of rotating Huey blades
as they back stroke the air;
gingerly alighting on a hot LZ.

The staccato stutter of rifle fire
indiscriminately searching the earth
laughingly playing hard games of tag.

The grieving hearts at graveside
waiting the echoing bugle call
while the flag is ritually folded.

Sound slowly this cadence
for the eons of history
the drums of war reverberate.

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Remembering

REMEMBERING

Hot, heat is the first impression,
this is the one that lasts
three hundred and sixty five days.

From the portal of the freedom bird
a year stretches across the runway,
across the heated shimmering tarmac,
far out in the yet unseen jungle
and seems to go on forever;
for some this elemental view,
begets only fear and hardship,
or a near future of youth forever.

Cold, cool is the lasting impression
the one felt in black granite;
a roll call stretching to saddness.

Names nestled comfortably
surrounded by cool green grass,
cool trees coolly reflecting a pool,
and cool white monuments.

For those names etched in reverence
hot bitter tears calculate the reality;
those three hundred and sixty five days
for so many measured indeed forever.

We left behind in this mortal world
must work to put aside our pain
to meet our charge to live and love
for those brothers no longer
driven by the frailty of life.

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Attack

ATTACK

I can still see their faces
mouths open screaming silent screams
silenced by the loud barking 
of weapons, theirs and ours;
sudden explosions rendering moot
intensity of automatic fire.

They came out of the trees
running across the stream,
the dark forms bending grass,
their feet splashing water;
such detail of uniforms,
wrinkles and straps,
water spraying from their passage.

The trees behind posed an almost
pastoral backdrop of night shadows
cast in the warm glow of collective detonations;
Then the silence, sudden silence,
ears overwhelmed by cruel technology,
the breathless suffocation of adrenaline.

Darkness grew as senses dimmed,
the brightness of action fading;
there were bodies in the grass, 
lying still in the water,
under my muzzle, within touch.

So natural in their motionless state
rather than fading into darkness,
the bodies, no longer men glowed 
illuminated by the floodlights
of hate, fear, and remorse.

Hand stretching to my muzzle,
poised just mere inches away,
while I kept pulling the trigger
on a now dead weapon;
willing the rounds to fire
needing them for survival.

I died but still breathed
as a fickle moon glanced
and showed its dismissive light;
there was nothing but death,
the dead, ours, theirs, scattered
natural in their motionless state.

As I looked, my friend,
lay against the embankment,
he unknowingly met my glance,
while light faded from his eyes;
his blue eyes kept watching
and his face calmly smiled.

The moon fluttered then gone,
rain came in whispering,
my sense of loss overwhelming;
alone now I could only grieve
their death and that of the living.

Ever so gently the Monsoon
whispers its condolence;
the gentle fall of water
cleansing my brutality
forgiving me my hate.
Gradually darkening my vision
night regained control.

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Deros

DEROS

There is great relief when a tour ends
and you are processed out of the unit;
addresses exchanged and goodbyes done
all thought is about the Freedom Bird
and the long awaited flight home.

Binh Hoa the last stop in Vietnam
here transitional shock begins;
pushed into unfamiliar rigid ranks 
while a sergeant in starched fatigues
storms back and forth ranting.

This sergeant is rear echelon
yelling about disgraceful soldiers,
a sorry embarrassing mob
none of who look like soldiers,
undeserving of the title, soldier.

Disgruntled combat soldiers
very willing to wring his neck,
but unwilling to delay departure;
these veteran troops stand quiet
wishing him twelve kinds of Hell.

The ride home is long and dreary,
the stewardesses compassionate,
thinking about the inbound flight
delivering their last batch of kids;
new lambs fresh for slaughter.

Flying over the Golden gate bridge
brings a cheer of cliché response;
no official screams disgust at Oakland,
their welcome is indifferent silence,
returnees only represent more work.
Every process is done haphazardly 
with an implied threat of delay
if there should be a complaint;
a very convenient ploy to dissuade 
close inspection of slack procedures.

Papers in hand albeit fraudulently 
incorrect  regarding service record,
health and well being of the processed;
newly ex-soldiers rush to the exit
glad to be rid of this Stateside welcome.

Once out the door begins the real welcome
of dark looks, dirty glances, open sneers,
smirks and quietly mumbled obscenities;
too many soldiers about to cause trouble,
these guys would bring the war home.

Now memories of home started corroding,
a dawning reality of this dismal reception
weighing on soldiers hearts and minds,
they were now neither soldiers nor civilians;
just war’s debris lacking respect of country.

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Sniper

SNIPER

A yell “ man down;” then zing, pock, pock,
pock, pock against the sandbag revetment.

Down on the plain is a man in a spider hole,
he is well hidden and armed well enough,
smokeless powder provides no clues.

Binoculars and spotter scopes range and scan.

The wounded soldier moves arms weakly, 
asking for help, hands exploring a bloody chest;
each attempt to get to him more whizzes and
pocks follow the movement of desperate men.

Zings and pock, pock, pock of sand bags hit,
in the distance a light echo of a rifle report,
a light pop reverberating from every where.

81-mm mortars inside the defensive perimeter
fire volleys of patterns mushrooming dust,
some air bursts for downward shrapnel,
these metal fragments might penetrate shelter.

The dust cloud shields medics and helpers
dragging this first victim to relative safety;
the dust-off flight already hurrying inbound.

Soon APCs roar by, their armour impervious,
tracks clanking the treads tearing ground;
carrier troops dismount and walk searching
investigating odd bits of clumps and weeds.

Nothings found he is too well hidden,
how did he ever dig in under watchful eyes,
how did he hide the signs of digging.

Now everyone moves about with this new worry
each movement cautious with little exposure;
careless soldiers leave trails of pocked sand bags,
one fellow gets ripped along his flack jacket,
too close a strike earning an unwanted souvenir.




Mortars continue to pound patterns on open ground,
this all to find a veritable chaffing grain of sand, 
a grain that throws an inconvenient  hail of bullets.

Our snipers and spotters set their own lairs;
hunting scopes by day starlight scopes at night.

The days are long as this deadly duel continues,
nerves are sensitised, some are shattered;
each move brings a buzz or whiz of near death.

Then there are no more shots, no more shooter,
perhaps the mortars got him or the gun ships,
perhaps he earned the NVA version of R & R.

Still every one walks, heads hunched, hair on end,
one sniper with a few dozen well place bullets
keeps one company sized position neutralised;
a good example showing us the fine art of war.

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Home

HOME

The family is very excited
happy to see me come home
they know I have changed,
but they have changed as well.

Their eyes are worried wary,
their expressions oddly strained
here the uncertainty lingers,
behind their welcoming smiles.

Their war plays on TV nightly
they want life to be as it was
they want to see their other son
the familiar son who left home.

Those who already came home 
had no chance to be successful; 
the growing war protest attitude
have made jobs impossible to find.

Home coming joy fades quickly,
reclaiming my place not possible, 
most people avoid the stain of contact;
many others remain openly hostile

Survival means staying invisible
all that has happened locked in,
no one from home willing to talk,
childhood friends now turn away.

The painful memories come by day,
but the pain is worse at night,
agony grows beyond endurance
and continues to grow relentlessly.

This hidden hurt happens in silence
the mind tortured ready to break;
home the new Hell replacing Vietnam,
home will never be home, never again.

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Belief

BELIEF

Hard to breathe 
in this crystalline air
I can feel it’s sharpness.
Nights are seldom pleasant
almost always dangerous.
Charles moves at night
dug in we wait for the attack.
We ceded the night to them;
now laying here listening,
straining to hear movement,
afraid of my loud heartbeat
worried it will give me away.
This has become my world
and uncertainty is common.
Tonight I can taste the tension  
we are isolated, me and a scout,
each also alone in thought’s,
loneliness of heart and soul.
Are they searching for us,
or just moving their supplies,
this constant flow of people?
The radio’s antenna has failed
we can hear others talking
our radio cannot talk to them.
Two men forgotten and lost
sinking into our private worlds.
For me the night is all I have
dawn is far away, too far,
as is the light of the world I left.
I realise I probably will die tonight
this night will become the last.
Tension has grown to breaking
yet I pray in these moments,
hopeless moments, of straining life;  
in these last precious moments
just know that I believe.