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Open Poetry #50
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icebox
Member Elite
since 2003-05-03
Posts 4383
in the shadows

0 posted 2017-05-25 03:41 AM



When you are making your Memorial Day plans, consider; the Day is not just about barbecue and beer:

We started out as boys of prey
believing what we'd learned,
some not even twenty
mostly poor with nothing earned,
others born to plenty
from worlds I wished I never knew;
obscenities the common glue
that held our worlds together
as we'd learned to stay alive.

We hated everything about the place,
boots,
food,
mud,
crud that stuck eyelids together,
weather,
newsies, amateurish boorish fools
buffoons with cameras,
tape recorder spools, whiskey up the ass,
white skin round eyed nurses only sleeping with the brass.

I had it easy
making ends meet on common ground
in the jungle with the bloods,
they hated all the snowflakes
but I hated everyone,
we started young and frightened
using ordnance like toys;
some were bagged up early flying home to flowers,
lucky ones were tagged;
all were bits and pieces
returned to tears and empty joys.

The rest of us stopped being boys
a tour or two ago,
tucked our fears into our dreams and didn't really sleep.
Nightmares came like boom-boom girls
loud with lots of flash.
I grew to be something else between human and a man
who'd lost the fear of dying on a blood trail in the bush,
later I replaced it with fear of going home;
even that got washed away until where I was
was all I'd ever known.

We learned it don't mean nothin'
to get by the best you can,
watch the ghosts come at you
and sometimes let them pass,
check the tracer colors
red could be OK
but green means someone's zeroed on your ass.

I don't make friends;
they always die and I hate them when they do.
Pass the shotgun here my man
we're back alive again;
play the music loud and clear
so I might hear it above the ringing in my ears.
Anybody hungry?
Put a good edge on your blades.
Wake up Doc,
lets build a fire,
I feel like fishing with grenades.

©2003, 2009, 2013, 2017 by icebox
  

© Copyright 2017 icebox - All Rights Reserved
Alison
Deputy Moderator 5 ToursDeputy Moderator 1 TourDeputy Moderator 1 TourDeputy Moderator 1 Tour
Member Rara Avis
since 2008-01-27
Posts 9318
Lumpy oatmeal makes me crazy!
1 posted 2017-05-25 09:47 AM


I'm always speechless, hollow inside after reading, ice. There's nothing to say, nothing that I can think of, that doesn't sound trite. Nothing except the words "Happy Memorial Day" strung together show the sheer stupidity of those who say them --- and I don't barbecue on Memorial Day. I can't write your story. Thank you's fall like platitudes. I can really only say that the hollow feeling will be part of my weekend.

Alison

P.U Stinkenbaum
Member
Posts 388
No Fan Of Exhaust Fans
2 posted 2017-05-25 12:23 PM


quote:
"The rest of us stopped being boys
a tour or two ago"
Good write, complete with the vernacular of the time & place[s]. Some of us went to RVN as boys, came back from RVN as men, and became boys again. Some of us are still that way and we reverted back to using a hook.

"Memorial Day"? We've been "welcomed home" a time or two by our comrades in arms now and and many of us are no longer part of the work-a-day, punch the clock world. Time to sit back, relax, and watch the news to see how many are dying on the highways and byways and in someone else's 'flandered field'.

It's just the way of it iceman. Some have it good, some have it bad. Me? Well, you didn't ask, but I've got it better than some and worse than others, and it's still the boy in me that likes it that way, if I even think about it at all.

BBQ? Nah, I'm much too busy flippin flapjacks and people who leave without payin'!  



Just out looking for the real me...

Poet In Pink
Senior Member
Posts 1066
MI
3 posted 2017-05-25 03:17 PM


Pleased to meet you Icebox What a wonderful & touching account you have penned. Coming from a family whose members have served and experienced some of the same things, I feel your words so profoundly. Memorial Day is just that ~ A time of remembrance ~ I have always been grateful to those that have served our nation, especially those that lost their lives doing it. Thank you for the reminder ~ God Bless ~ Alana
JamesMichael
Member Empyrean
since 1999-11-16
Posts 33336
Kapolei, Hawaii, USA
4 posted 2017-05-26 07:37 PM


Thank you for your service...James
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