# 16

Robert D. Wilson's

A library Collection of over 3 decades 

of innovative and evocative poetry 

and haiga art. Wilson is Co-founder 

and Co-owner of SIMPLY HAIKU, 

and the author of Jack Fruit Moon, 

Late For Mass, Tanka Fields, And 

Sanity Scurried, and Vietnam 

Ruminations.

day after

day, the dragon's

tendrils

robert d. wilson

©2011

the visions

we shared as boys

stayed home

when the dragon drew 

me into his lair

the drone 

of trikes painting 

autumn gray

   autumn dusk . . . 

i walk around a

dank pond

laughing at the 

moon's crooked smile

the melody

of a tomcat's song . . .

autumn dusk

i chew on

on what you  

don't say . . .

sandals covered 

with more than dust

      

      winter heat . . .

the rice fields aren't

vacant

street vendors

suckling an asp's venom . . .

what to them 

are television sets

and family picnics?

    moonless night . . . 

startled by a

jeepney's bark

colored lights

on a street filled 

with inns . . .

sending text messages

in-between tricks 

broken rice 

for lunch  and dinner . . .

autumn dusk

long hours 

in the rice field . . .

she looks old

now,her value lower

than a carabao's

winter night . . . 

a fawn inside me

nursing words

go ahead,

haunt me with the

emptiness

of eyes living

on borrowed time

think of me

as a passerby . . . 

autumn moon

seemingly

forever, walking

through tall grass . . . 

a still life boy

doing penance

when she walks

at dawn . . .  the sun

gathering dew

was that you

last night, a dim figure

beside me . . . 

in the morning, the

feint scent of lilacs?

twilight dusk ...

this lure of waves on a 

shoreline of stars

If even for

a moment I were

to wake up

with you at my side . . .

my limbs would tremble

winter morning . . .

the same vendor in

the same stall

you avoid

me this morning . . . 

is it my

breath or the after 

taste of a bad dream?

a vendor

molesting the rain . . .

harvest moon

she listens

to our conversation

like she would

a newscast, the words

fastened to captions

when i wake

up, a day moon . . .

shedding stars

what is it

that draws me to

stilt shanties?

a love affair

with old dragons?

summer moon . . .

a carabao suckles

her calf

how can i

sleep when worry

reminds me

of the children

i can't father

      winter heat . . . 

oxen licking

salt blocks 

is that you

in the spider's web . . . 

a weak cry?

a seductive song?

Homer's sirens?

another

night without sleep . . 

day moon

tell me

it's possible 

to place you . . . 

on a mantle with

mother's ashes

Where to go 

when windows have 

no panes, 

and

air flows 

through your lungs 

like Phillip Morris' 

menthol 

kiss of death, 

the suits 

in Virginia

donating

the cost to 

feed

a small nation's poor

to every

politician

who'll

sell their soul

the

public

fed lies

like 

hungry goats

dehorned 

corralled

eating weeds 

in small spaces

built over

nuclear waste

sites

the 

sock monkeys

in 

Washington 

Tokyo

London

Moscow

and

China

say

 are safe

as

far

as

they

can 

T

E

L

L

their homes

and offices

equipped

with 

state-of-the-art

air purifiers

paid for

by people 

who can't afford them

burping chimneys

belching dragons

made by

Toho Studios

that 

make

Godzilla

look 

like

a wind-up

character actor

who 

hasn't stepped

on a building 

for

  decades . . .

help. I'm a rock

help. I'm a rock

deformed babies

help, Im a rock

help, I'm a rock

emphysema 

cancer,

skin disease

help, I'm a rock

help, I'm a rock

Fritz Lang

standing

on top

of

the

Empire State Building

shouting

I'm rich!

I'm rich!

I'm rich!

 I'M

      RICH!!!!!

robert d. wilson

©2011

after the rain,

an endless line

of ants

During the Monsoon season in South Vietnam, it rained

every day, the downpour torrential, the wind a bully

punishing everything in its path. Coming from California.

I was unaccustomed to this kind of weather. I

remember one time, leaning almost to the ground in order

to walk a few hundred yards, the wind clocked at 75

miles per hour. It took me fifteen minutes to get from the

whorehouse Iʼd spent the night at in Saigon to my duty

station, a converted hotel used to house sailors traveling

in and out of country.

     two kinds of fields. . .

one for sowing,

one for dying

Laborers picking and planting rice in the rice paddies of the former

Republic of South Vietnam was a common sight. Rice is the principle

crop in Vietnam. It's eaten at every meal. The laborers I saw worked

long hours, their backs arched over, their hands calloused, the sun

overhead, emitting a heat Iʼd never experienced before in the United

States.

The majority of the laborers in the fields were women. Many of their

husbands were dead, disabled, or fighting for the North or South

Vietnamese armies. Unlike their American counterparts, the women

wore no makeup, sunscreen, protective gloves, or work boots. Their

skinned was leathery from excessive exposure to the sun. At the end

of the work day, which started before sunrise, they returned to a home

without modern conveniences. No flush toilets, ovens, refrigerators,

air conditioners, curling irons, blenders, and other things so many of us

take for granted.

.

near the ground that will

claim her, the old woman

hawking rice

Retirement is something most of us living in the United States

look forward to. Thanks to Social Security and pensions, it

is a time to rest, to do the things we always wanted to do but

couldnʼt.

This is a foreign concept to the people living in the Mekong

Delta region of southern Vietnam. There are no pensions or

social security checks for the laborers in the rice fields and the

vendors in the marketplace. Life is hard. People work until they

can no longer work.

They go to work before dawn and work long hours. The only

rest they get is the rest they get at night. There are no bowling

alleys, movie theaters, and shopping centers to visit when the

work day has ended. The villagers do what people do in homes

lacking the modern conveniences we take for granted: cook,

sew, mend, repair, build, wash clothes by hand, and prepare for

the next day.

In Mytho City, it was commonplace to see old women stooping

next to the baskets of rice, fruit, or vegetables they were hawking

in the marketplace. Their skin, leathery from exposure to the

sun. Their backs, bowed from years of hard labor.

Survival, their motivation.

shortened day . . .

a monk steps into the darkness

without his robe

It was not uncommon to see saffron robed Buddhist monks

wandering through villages between our base and Mytho, the

nearest large city. They never spoke. They never smiled. They

were either alone or with other monks. The area was infested

with Viet Cong soldiers. The villagers of the Mekong Delta

wore two hats...one to keep the sun off of their heads during

the day and another to make them invisible in the inky

black darkness that never spoke. The monks were an enigma.

Religion of any kind is not tolerated by Communists. Not

today and not yesterday. The only other religious people I saw

were a couple of Vietnamese Catholic nuns who operated an

orphanage in Bien Duc, a village halfway between Mytho and

our base in Dong Tam. They too were an enigma. Were they

who they said they were? What about the monks? I remember

the time a Buddhist monk told me it would be dangerous for

me to visit a temple in Mytho. Why? So many whys.......If

only I could ask the darkness.

This resort called Hell --

Death stood before me with 

an outstretched hand

We regularly went on runs to the garbage dump a few miles

outside the Base gate. It was a public dump, although the

public seldom used it. Vietnamese villagers are a resourceful

people. They wasted nothing. They found uses for

almost anything. The poorest villagers watched as we

unloaded our garbage. Torn or stained clothing, old magazines,

half eaten food, cardboard boxes, broken furniture,

metal containers, used paper. Things we had no more use

for. Villagers combed through our garbage, looking for

items to salvage and recycle. It was a dusty, smelly, fly ridden

place. A hellish oasis in the middle of a tropical paradise.

One hot, humid summer morning stands out. My shipmates

and I had just dumped the garbage from the dayʼs duty assignment.

I pulled out a candy bar pirated from a box of sea

rations (canned and freeze dried food used by those on the

patrol boats during river duty). It tasted lousy. I tossed the

remainder of the candy bar on the dusty ground and half

buried it with my foot. The moment I pulled my foot away,

a skeletal man dove to the ground and stuffed the candy

bar, dust and all, into his mouth. He swallowed it whole.

Coming from America, I had never seen starvation before.

It was an eye opening experience for me. I am still haunted by

that moment.

flowing down 

river,petals from the

lotus flower

The day the YRBM-17, the river boat repair barge I was stationed

on, was hit by enemy rocket fire, is a day I will never

forget. It was the day the Vietnam War jumped out of the television

screen into my lap. I was eating with my shipmates in the

base chow hall when the rocket fire hit. Instinctively, we left the

cover of the chow hall and ran towards the YRBM-17. Looking

at the rockets exploding, not knowing which way to go, forcing

myself to concentrate on survival, shelving, for the moment, the

fear that wanted to surface.... focusing on the now in a sea of

adrenaline .....one day I was sitting on the sofa with my family

watching news reports about the war, munching on popcorn.

Seemingly the next day, I was dodging rockets and automatic

fire. Out of nowhere, the telltale whistle of an incoming rocket.

My buddies and I kissed the deck, the sky raining shrapnel in

every direction. When we got back on our feet, a shipmate lay

before us in a pool of blood.

Pray for and/or project positive thoughts to 
our brothers on sisters in Japan who are the
victims of greedy corporations and politicians 
who value profit over human beings.


PLEASE, I BEG ALL OF YOU TO WATCH THIS
VIDEO BELOW OF A YOUNG CHILD SPEAKING
TO THE UNITED NATIONS. IT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE FOREVER! 


robert d. wilson
©2011