Sterling
It all seems so ironic now.
In college, I was totally out there.
And I do mean out there.
Any demonstration within a hundred miles,
I was there, carrying a sign, screaming.
Black Power, all that jazz.
It felt good, it felt real good.
And I believed.
Whitey, The System, they were
about to go
the way of the dinosaur.
My daddy said, “Why don’t you prepare
for a real job—law, medicine, even accounting?
I didn’t survive the Great War for
no sociology shit.”
Black Studies he always spat out
with open scorn.
But that’s where it was,
the action, the freedom, the energy.
And it was a good place to be--
in those days. Nothing at all wrong
with majorin’ in sociology.
Only no jobs.
Reality hit the Big Fan.
So I signed up, innocent as
the proverbial babe. I couldn’t have
been thinking—ticket to what?
As it turned out,
the jungles of Vietnam.
Lord, I thought Alabama was hot!
Felt at first like the oven
of Satan himself--
only humid, with the air
clawin’ over you with tongs.
But the setting wasn’t so bad overall,
sweating, crawlin’ around, pretendin’ to be
accomplishin’ something, till
Boom! that shell hit
and everything went black.
Black as night.
An’ I’m not talkin’ African
skin black, which is mostly brown
anyway, ‘least in my case,
I’m talkin’ black
as everlasting absence
of any light, sun or moon,
blind as Oedipus
in—where was it?—Thebes.
Joe was beside me with his leg blown
off, laughing like a maniac, “I’ll never play
baseball again, I’ll never play
baseball again,”
almost like he was glad
to be rid of the American pastime.
But I looked out
and saw nothing more
than the end of my favorite life,
the life I had been so busy acting in--
no more Civil Rights,
no more upping The System,
just feeling my life
ooze out like the lost soul
I always was,
prisoner
of the Old South
not yet crawlin’ to the New.
As the man said, sockets dripping
in tainted blood, “I was blind,
but now I see.”
I see in myself
a fool of the first order
who believed we could really
change The System, make it help
the poor, the damaged,
the folks with the dark skin
who suffered so much and will never
get their justice
without some serious blood.
Man, was I a babe!
Innocent and so blind--
and now I look at the world,
I look at everybody, through the heart
of myself and see it
clear as a shell
break open like a flower
by Contributing Poet David Radavich Copyright © 2007
VWP 2020 First published in David's book, America Bound: An Epic for Our Time by Plain View 2007
Vet
Don’t imagine
the war is over
just because
you’ve come home.
Just because
your wounds
have been wrapped,
just because
there were crowds
in the streets
and a few
remembered.
The battle goes on
moon and memory
light and cloud
this morsel
this defecation
and having to
decide like a hawk.
No one can save you
from living.
Love is a shoal
in the river.
The front line
is today:
peace ringing
somewhere
in the blood.
by Contributing Poet David Radavich Copyright © 2020
VWP 2020 Next to be published in David's book, Here's Plenty by Cervena Barva 2020
It all seems so ironic now.
In college, I was totally out there.
And I do mean out there.
Any demonstration within a hundred miles,
I was there, carrying a sign, screaming.
Black Power, all that jazz.
It felt good, it felt real good.
And I believed.
Whitey, The System, they were
about to go
the way of the dinosaur.
My daddy said, “Why don’t you prepare
for a real job—law, medicine, even accounting?
I didn’t survive the Great War for
no sociology shit.”
Black Studies he always spat out
with open scorn.
But that’s where it was,
the action, the freedom, the energy.
And it was a good place to be--
in those days. Nothing at all wrong
with majorin’ in sociology.
Only no jobs.
Reality hit the Big Fan.
So I signed up, innocent as
the proverbial babe. I couldn’t have
been thinking—ticket to what?
As it turned out,
the jungles of Vietnam.
Lord, I thought Alabama was hot!
Felt at first like the oven
of Satan himself--
only humid, with the air
clawin’ over you with tongs.
But the setting wasn’t so bad overall,
sweating, crawlin’ around, pretendin’ to be
accomplishin’ something, till
Boom! that shell hit
and everything went black.
Black as night.
An’ I’m not talkin’ African
skin black, which is mostly brown
anyway, ‘least in my case,
I’m talkin’ black
as everlasting absence
of any light, sun or moon,
blind as Oedipus
in—where was it?—Thebes.
Joe was beside me with his leg blown
off, laughing like a maniac, “I’ll never play
baseball again, I’ll never play
baseball again,”
almost like he was glad
to be rid of the American pastime.
But I looked out
and saw nothing more
than the end of my favorite life,
the life I had been so busy acting in--
no more Civil Rights,
no more upping The System,
just feeling my life
ooze out like the lost soul
I always was,
prisoner
of the Old South
not yet crawlin’ to the New.
As the man said, sockets dripping
in tainted blood, “I was blind,
but now I see.”
I see in myself
a fool of the first order
who believed we could really
change The System, make it help
the poor, the damaged,
the folks with the dark skin
who suffered so much and will never
get their justice
without some serious blood.
Man, was I a babe!
Innocent and so blind--
and now I look at the world,
I look at everybody, through the heart
of myself and see it
clear as a shell
break open like a flower
by Contributing Poet David Radavich Copyright © 2007
VWP 2020 First published in David's book, America Bound: An Epic for Our Time by Plain View 2007
Vet
Don’t imagine
the war is over
just because
you’ve come home.
Just because
your wounds
have been wrapped,
just because
there were crowds
in the streets
and a few
remembered.
The battle goes on
moon and memory
light and cloud
this morsel
this defecation
and having to
decide like a hawk.
No one can save you
from living.
Love is a shoal
in the river.
The front line
is today:
peace ringing
somewhere
in the blood.
by Contributing Poet David Radavich Copyright © 2020
VWP 2020 Next to be published in David's book, Here's Plenty by Cervena Barva 2020
Bio: David Radavich's latest narrative collection is America Abroad: An Epic of Discovery (2019),
a companion volume to his earlier America Bound: An Epic for Our Time (2007).
Recent lyric collections are Middle-East Mezze (2011), The Countries We Live In (2014),
and the forthcoming Here's Plenty (2020).
His plays have been performed across the U.S. and in Europe.
He lives in Charlotte, North Carolina.
DavidRadavich.org
a companion volume to his earlier America Bound: An Epic for Our Time (2007).
Recent lyric collections are Middle-East Mezze (2011), The Countries We Live In (2014),
and the forthcoming Here's Plenty (2020).
His plays have been performed across the U.S. and in Europe.
He lives in Charlotte, North Carolina.
DavidRadavich.org
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