and you, tree . . .
white washing treetops
with now
i know, a
tilapia swimming
through me . . .
in a poem ban'ya
calls a haiku
cradling
a marmot's head . . .
in winter
stop the world
i want to get off . . .
stretch my
song into counter
melodies and moans
sip muffled
thoughts stirred with leaves . . .
jack fruit moon
and still
this sand, white-washing .. .
steep walls
My mother bore down, pushing me into this world on the 13th of May, yes, a Friday, at 9:30 in the morning, grimacing, cursing, reminded every second that my path and hers will be forever entwined in a cosmic circus tent filled with mirrors donated by big business, the John Birch Society, and an infinite number of posers insisting that Van Gogh painted by numbers.
twilight dawn . . .
a catfish with his
mouth open
manicured . . .
dreams swathed in a
young man's blood
robert d. wilson
I grew up in middle class, never lock your front door, America, when Norman Rockwell wore under-roos, and every parent sounded like Homer Simpson. Barry Goldwater signs made love to manicured lawns; Susie Creamcheese was the school slut; and milk bottles were still delivered to your front door. War was a John Wayne shoot-em-up we watched with our dads, who yelled out, "Kill the Japs!" Shoot the Krauts!" "Hangem by the balls!"
On weekends, we played sports: baseball, football, basketball. Afterwards, we ate t.v.dinners in front of small screen television sets in the belly of the MGM lion.
Never in our wildest imaginations did we think we'd some day face the invisible fire of young men and women, even children, programmed to "Kill the Americans!"in the dawn's early light.
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 Vietnam's 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 fire; flashes of light; tracers; automatic gunfire, 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, surfing, 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 44 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.
yesterday . . .
blossoms giving birth
to mirrors
My father went to war. My mother's father, before him. We were taught to love our country.
We saw America as a beacon light of freedom that could do no wrong. We had freedoms enjoyed nowhere else on the planet. It was out duty as soldiers and as Americans to protect these freedoms here and abroad, keeping the commies at bay.
Vietnam was a domino.a boot shaped country under siege by communists. If it fell, other countries would fall, one after the other. Communism was barking at our back door. To preserve America's freedoms, we had to do what we had to do:
risk life and limb like our ancestors did, on a foreign shore.
No one told us that Firestone Rubber, Shell Oil Company, and other Western business interests had huge holdings in the Republic
of South Vietnam . . . or that 90% of the world's tungsten was on her shores.
No one told us that this tiny, remote country in Southeast Asia was ruled by a heartless psychopathic tyrant who didn't hesitate to
murder someone who practiced the freedoms we practiced in America.
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 essence, the personification of Robert Heinlen's book, A Stranger in A Strange Land.
A poor country ravaged by a thousand years of war, corruption, and military dictatorships, many South Vietnamese people living in the cities wanted to be delivered to the promise-land they'd heard about in the news.
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. Neither did we 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.
mute, the wind
treading bamboo bridges . . .
syllables?
Quiet . . . nothing moved, breathed, or thought . . . a carnival of anticipation, spirits clothed in ashes, painting yesterday with un-calloused fingers no one thought would be decide another's fate.
I was 18 and 19, living in the dragon's belly, unsure of a future that could or couldn't be brought home in a body bag covered with my country's flag.
From high school to hell in less than a year. What was church, Billy Graham, the Beach Boys, and the Beatles in a world suddenly upended, the moon on leave from his senses?
"That's all for now. I finally found the time to put this addition to my archives together. So much to do with so little time. Maintaining and uploading this library, finishing a book on haiku criticism, facing a deadline for a redefinition of Vietnam Ruminations, that will be distributed free to American troops and their families. by a non-haiku related publishing house. And that my readers and detractors is just the tip off of the proverbial iceberg."