# 11

Robert D. Wilson's

A SHOWCASE

for over 3 decades of poetry and haiga art

robert d. wilson

*NOTE: This poetry doesn't necessarily reflect the style I'm writing

now

the bed

curtain's shadow

dances

petitely on the 

face of a new born

you smell

like a tannery,

blossom!

the scent of

rain culturing

my nose

with memories of 

you singing psalms

late summer . . . 

the sadness of moss

erasing rivers

ah winter!

clouds speak to me

with water

in words dancing 

on my forehead

dance with me

stream, in a ballroom

of pebbles

the whiteness

of song, water,

stretched 

over glaciers sculpted

by beluga whales

warm morning . . . 

flies push ahead 

of the line

starless night . . . 

gang  members in a

dark alley

hunger for the fruit

they can't afford buy

   swollen bellies . . . 

bearing bridges for 

rice fields

summer

wakes up over 

summer 

over summer

. . . a field of mirrors

candlelight . . . 

a line of spirits

sowing words

an arched bridge

in the memorial

garden . . .

how many more 

in the rice fields

elephant 

grass, a night with-

out whisper

not my

own, rain tells me

when i can

and can't walk across 

the tips of mountains

   

poor boa,

in a cage sifting

boredom

unlike spring

the time will come

when i won't

return, my words . . . 

passing through pages

warm morning . . . 

flies push ahead 

of the line

starless night . . . 

gang  members in a

dark alley

hunger for the fruit

they can't afford buy

   swollen bellies . . . 

bearing bridges for 

rice fields

summer

wakes up over 

summer 

over summer

. . . a field of mirrors

candlelight . . . 

a line of spirits

sowing words

an arched bridge

in the memorial

garden . . .

how many more 

in the rice fields

elephant 

grass, a night with-

out whisper

moss too

will cover my bones; 

her dampness 

weaving darkness

into dreamscapes

     pre-dawn . . . 

staring past a

thousand eyes

my home waits

for me in the

shadow of

maria makeling,

smiling with dawn

  

   mud springs . . . 

even faeries hide

their feelings

what do 

ancestors think when

the lights are 

out and paper takes

the place of prayer

how sensual

the moon, her fingers

tracing dreams

she forgot

that clouds are pockets

of moisture

without bottoms . . .

a long way down

is that you,

mole, digging in darkness

for spring?

i read

shotetsu in

the evening . . . 

an egret swooning

moonlit shadows

those shadows,

egret, the stillness

of breath

a candle

singing, heartened

to be

remembered after

all of these months

children's tears

moisten shadows . . . 

all saints day

candlelight

and tears irrigate

fields sowing

next year's memories

with this year's words

children speak 

to them once a year . . . 

candle light

as of late

winter chides me like

an echo . . . 

the fading of stars

a loss of words

Vietnam Ruminations

Boating upriver

into a dream saved

for nights like this,

when alice sets

fire to wonderland

All of us stationed in Dong Tam at some time or another were

assigned to river patrol. This entailed navigating narrow, brown

water river-ways in Vietnamʼs Mekong Delta through dense vegetation,

partially obscured villages, and blind turns. We knew we

were being watched. It was impossible to ascertain if the villagers

we passed were for or against us. The enemy didnʼt wear

uniforms. Most of the time, these forays were uneventful. Sometimes,

when we least expected it to, all hell would break loose, descending

us into the bowels of a dragon mirroring Danteʼs Inferno.

Flame throwers belching fi re; fl ashes of light; tracers; automatic

gunfi re, mortars; shrapnel; blood; out-of-control heartbeats, interwoven

with the scent of death. While some of my friends in

America were living the good life: cruising the boulevard, surfi ng,

attending concerts, dancing, dating, and working towards goals, I

was in a jungle on the other side of the planet dancing with Alice

in the Wonderland Amusement Park.

elephant grass . . .

a gnat whispering,

“youʼre next”

I remember the wisps of air shooting past me

like gnats as if it were yesterday. Only it was

38 years ago and I was an 18 year old sailor

serving my country on a small base in the

Mekong Delta region of the former Republic of

South Vietnam in a war that would change my

life forever.

endless summer . . .

a shadow pretending

to be a god

We fought a war in a country we knew little to nothing about. South Vietnam

was not in our high school textbooks. And there was no Discovery Channel introducing

my peers and I to exotic cultures. We were, in essense, the personifi cation

of Robert Hemleinʼs A Stranger in A Strange Land.

A poor country ravaged by a thousand years of war, corruption, and military dictatorships,

the people of this Southeast Asian country wanted to be saved and delivered

to the promise land theyʼd heard abouts in the news and entertainment media.

American soldiers were looked upon as saviors by many Vietnamese people. We

were the embodiment of the life theyʼd dreamed of. Many naively thought weʼd

win the war and turn their country into a miniature United States. We were not

saviors, however, and we did not transform their countryʼs economy into a likeness

of ours. And we did not win the war. Bowing to political pressure in the

U.S., our Armed Forces deserted the South Vietnamese people. leaving in their

wake a bloodbath for those who supported our country and the dictatorship weʼd

helped place into power and supported.

she whispers to me

this humid winter night

from sallow pools

left on the runway of what

could have been

Iʼll never forget the fi rst time I saw my mother cry. Iʼd received

orders to fl y to Saigon, the capitol city of the Republic of South

Vietnam. My tour of duty was for one year. I would be in the

heart of a war that was sending soldiers home in pine boxes on

a daily basis. Some of them we knew.

In January of 1968, I boarded a commuter plane in Long Beach,

California, near where Iʼd lived most of my life, on the first leg

of my journey. I turned around to wave to my mother. She was

standing on the runway, weeping, waving halfheartedly, hoping

and praying that I would come back to her alive in one piece. I

never doubted my motherʼs love from that day on. When she

passed away in 1997, at the age of 70, I was holding her hand,

returning the tears




/_/_/_/_/_/_/


i'm
lying beside
a hot tub
basking in
opulence
soothing
hurts
acquired
in
yesterday's
comic strip
about
me
your
black and white screen
inoperable
     and silent . . .
t
h
i
n
k
i
n
g
only of poets
reading naked
baring all
                 their drawers
without elastic
and
holy




In Memory Of


Leonid Breshnev
laid silent without god
before 
an anxious world
in Red Square
his medals on a pillow
no flagged draped coffin
pulled by a
horse-drawn carriage
mourned by the masses
weeping children
metropolitans and priests
Animal Farm's king
a gilded peacock
in frozen hate
joined his mentor in
dreamless sleep
without god
as
the important passed 
single file
in polite repose
kings, sheiks,
prime ministers and presidents
dry-eyed and sober
paid their respects . . . 
Yuri Andropov
KGB chief and theoretician,
why was Moscow
sealed off
when the world
said goodbye?


robert d. wilson
excerpted from And Sanity Scurried

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