Ex-patriot
Half a century ago, I carried a flag and grinned,
with the Young Republicans,
in my town's parade, the one that ended
in the square.
Later, in the band, no uniform,
and just good enough at it
for a junior-high band.
Proud to be in that parade,
marching for a future
we could smell just past the horizon.
In 1970, we paused from marching and plotting
the perfect world to follow
Apollo's fires. Even later, at Canaveral,
standing by the great supine rocket,
I was moved from faction to remember
an explosion in space, a moment
of common fears and dreams.
Today, I watch the marchers,
fighting two more Asian wars,
try to puzzle out their chants and signs,
wave to them, and return to my magazine,
exhausted by hope.
by Contributing Poet David M. Harris Copyright © 2013
VWP 2016 First published in MyPoemRocks.com & The Review Mirror 2013
After Nam
He once told me this story.
Up seventy-two bucks at the end,
when morning came with no attack.
Playing penny-ante in a foxhole
in a jungle somewhere in Viet Nam,
pretty lucky, except for his birthday.
A good birthday left me at home,
free to sit in a dark apartment,
play canasta, study a little,
and march to bring him home alive.
Years later, at an office party, he and I traded
memories, drinking through the decades-old
hostilities. We needed to work together.
We wanted to be friends. An unresolved war
stood between. Drinks got us talking.
No one worried about old news. We traded
experiences.
It was different then. Dressed for business,
canapés in the ill-lit back room
of a nice midtown restaurant, celebrating
some corporate achievement. We had a common
enemy now, an employer.
Watching people like me on tv
from the barracks, thinking about us
from the foxhole, hearing us--
some of us--call him a baby-killer
when what he was, what they all were,
was scared. And we, the ones who had won
the draft lottery, could yell
as loud as we wanted. From Nam,
it was noise and anger. He asked, what in hell
had we wanted?
We wanted everything. We wanted
free drugs and cheap love, a messianic age
of universal brotherhood and electric guitars
on rural communes with all mod cons --
The dream drifted off, and the ones
we marched to bring home, came home
with their hostility matching ours.
We stopped marching and found jobs,
cut our hair and bought suits.
He never got to march down Broadway
but did get to change outfits and,
shaking hands and comparing our ties,
eventually share a good Scotch
with a retired protester.
by Contributing Poet David M. Harris Copyright © 2016
VWP 2016 First published in VietnamWarPoetry.com
Half a century ago, I carried a flag and grinned,
with the Young Republicans,
in my town's parade, the one that ended
in the square.
Later, in the band, no uniform,
and just good enough at it
for a junior-high band.
Proud to be in that parade,
marching for a future
we could smell just past the horizon.
In 1970, we paused from marching and plotting
the perfect world to follow
Apollo's fires. Even later, at Canaveral,
standing by the great supine rocket,
I was moved from faction to remember
an explosion in space, a moment
of common fears and dreams.
Today, I watch the marchers,
fighting two more Asian wars,
try to puzzle out their chants and signs,
wave to them, and return to my magazine,
exhausted by hope.
by Contributing Poet David M. Harris Copyright © 2013
VWP 2016 First published in MyPoemRocks.com & The Review Mirror 2013
After Nam
He once told me this story.
Up seventy-two bucks at the end,
when morning came with no attack.
Playing penny-ante in a foxhole
in a jungle somewhere in Viet Nam,
pretty lucky, except for his birthday.
A good birthday left me at home,
free to sit in a dark apartment,
play canasta, study a little,
and march to bring him home alive.
Years later, at an office party, he and I traded
memories, drinking through the decades-old
hostilities. We needed to work together.
We wanted to be friends. An unresolved war
stood between. Drinks got us talking.
No one worried about old news. We traded
experiences.
It was different then. Dressed for business,
canapés in the ill-lit back room
of a nice midtown restaurant, celebrating
some corporate achievement. We had a common
enemy now, an employer.
Watching people like me on tv
from the barracks, thinking about us
from the foxhole, hearing us--
some of us--call him a baby-killer
when what he was, what they all were,
was scared. And we, the ones who had won
the draft lottery, could yell
as loud as we wanted. From Nam,
it was noise and anger. He asked, what in hell
had we wanted?
We wanted everything. We wanted
free drugs and cheap love, a messianic age
of universal brotherhood and electric guitars
on rural communes with all mod cons --
The dream drifted off, and the ones
we marched to bring home, came home
with their hostility matching ours.
We stopped marching and found jobs,
cut our hair and bought suits.
He never got to march down Broadway
but did get to change outfits and,
shaking hands and comparing our ties,
eventually share a good Scotch
with a retired protester.
by Contributing Poet David M. Harris Copyright © 2016
VWP 2016 First published in VietnamWarPoetry.com
Bio: David M. Harris had never lived more than fifty miles from New York City until 2003.
Since then he has moved to Tennessee, married, acquired a daughter and a classic MG,
and gotten serious about poetry. All these projects seem to be working out pretty well.
His work has appeared in Pirene's Fountain (and in First Water, the Best of Pirene's Fountain
anthology), Gargoyle, The Labletter, The Pedestal and other places.
His first collection of poetry, The Review Mirror, was published by Unsolicited Press in 2013.
On Sunday mornings, at 11 AM Central time, he talks about poetry on
WRFN-LP in Pasquo, TN ( RadioFreeNashville.org ).
Since then he has moved to Tennessee, married, acquired a daughter and a classic MG,
and gotten serious about poetry. All these projects seem to be working out pretty well.
His work has appeared in Pirene's Fountain (and in First Water, the Best of Pirene's Fountain
anthology), Gargoyle, The Labletter, The Pedestal and other places.
His first collection of poetry, The Review Mirror, was published by Unsolicited Press in 2013.
On Sunday mornings, at 11 AM Central time, he talks about poetry on
WRFN-LP in Pasquo, TN ( RadioFreeNashville.org ).
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