Blank Verse for the Man We Threw from the Sky
Though the memory doesn't feel like mine,
I must have been there, moving north north-west,
holding, up above the Perfume River,
with Simon, Isaac, our Arab gunner,
Vince, called Pineapple because of his face,
the NVA who kept on smiling
who would not stop to save his own life,
and Peter who had stopped asking questions,
having seen what no one should live to see
after Hue, and down to one emotion.
And if you could have held your head just right
seen the paint falling from the recent world
the old paint, there all the time, coming through,
you'd see our ancient nightmare carnival
framed in the CH-47's door
the Bosch pentimento of Viet Nam:
Here's child-meretrix selling her same ass
there in the tents which are huge green mussels.
The cargo choppers become dead-eyed fish
held down by the green bags of what remained
and the bodies, Jesus, pieces of bodies
women and boys in pieces, hanging in trees.
The dragons blowing their orange fires
with those same six hundred year old ravens
afterwards, and always a crescent moon.
But Bosch was wrong about how a man falls
In his Descent of the Damned into Hell
not handed to the air like a new bride,
or set down into space like firewood,
but arms out forward, braced, and on his knees
like a child's doubtful Indian dive,
but holding, past fear, and on both knees.
A parody of some liveable fall
with the river a lifetime below him.
The rest was just as Bosch warned us it'd be
and I'm not offended at our likeness:
demon-apes, empty of everything else,
prehensile hands, demon-hands, just like mine.
by Contributing Poet Eliot khalil Wilson Copyright © 2015
VWP 2015 First published in VietnamWarPoetry.com
Designing a Bird from Memory in Jack's Skin Kitchen
We hated everything below us.
We'd come to hate the ground itself,
to dread the heavy ropes of gravity
drawing us down from blue
to a brooding green
which would billow in tan dust
like waves of fistic clouds.
We'd come to kill
the afternoons, to evade
the blanket heat by flying out of rifle reach
and dropping mortar rounds through the clouds and trees,
our demented resentment
entirely non-personal.
I would come to forget Isaac
our Arab gunner with his shell carton filled with baklava
and just how mixed he was
bearded, but awash in after-shave,
dropping incendiary bombs and Hershey bars at the same time,
Viet S'mores we called it.
How he could shoot his .50 caliber, stoned on hash,
as accurate as fate itself.
How he'd shoot children and dogs,
but not women or birds. Bad luck,
he said. Even when they are dead,
women and birds remember.
I would forget how we found him later in Song Ngan Valley
mixed with the ground and chopper,
repatriated, tangled like a lover,
his broken hand up and open
as if feeling for rain,
or patiently expecting some small gratuity.
The visor of his helmet shining the same
blue-black iridescence
as the glass of Chartes cathedral.
Right here, I tell the tattoo man
giving him my arm,
A blue bird, that certain blue, with black eyes
and rising.
by Contributing Poet Eliot khalil Wilson Copyright © 2015
VWP 2015 First published in VietnamWarPoetry.com
The Armless Child
Children's Hospital: Hanoi
We hated everything below us.
We'd come to hate the ground itself,
to dread the heavy ropes of gravity
drawing us down from blue
to a brooding green
which would billow in tan dust
like waves of fistic clouds.
We'd come to kill
the afternoons, to evade
the blanket heat by flying out of rifle reach
and dropping mortar rounds through the clouds and trees,
our demented resentment
entirely non-personal.
I would come to forget Isaac
our Arab gunner with his shell carton filled with baklava
and just how mixed he was
bearded, but awash in after-shave,
dropping incendiary bombs and Hershey bars at the same time,
Viet S'mores we called it.
How he could shoot his .50 caliber, stoned on hash,
as accurate as fate itself.
How he'd shoot children and dogs,
but not women or birds. Bad luck,
he said. Even when they are dead,
women and birds remember.
I would forget how we found him later in Song Ngan Valley
mixed with the ground and chopper,
repatriated, tangled like a lover,
his broken hand up and open
as if feeling for rain,
or patiently expecting some small gratuity.
The visor of his helmet shining the same
blue-black iridescence
as the glass of Chartes cathedral.
Right here, I tell the tattoo man
giving him my arm,
A blue bird, that certain blue, with black eyes
and rising.
by Contributing Poet Eliot khalil Wilson Copyright © 2015
VWP 2015 First published in VietnamWarPoetry.com
Though the memory doesn't feel like mine,
I must have been there, moving north north-west,
holding, up above the Perfume River,
with Simon, Isaac, our Arab gunner,
Vince, called Pineapple because of his face,
the NVA who kept on smiling
who would not stop to save his own life,
and Peter who had stopped asking questions,
having seen what no one should live to see
after Hue, and down to one emotion.
And if you could have held your head just right
seen the paint falling from the recent world
the old paint, there all the time, coming through,
you'd see our ancient nightmare carnival
framed in the CH-47's door
the Bosch pentimento of Viet Nam:
Here's child-meretrix selling her same ass
there in the tents which are huge green mussels.
The cargo choppers become dead-eyed fish
held down by the green bags of what remained
and the bodies, Jesus, pieces of bodies
women and boys in pieces, hanging in trees.
The dragons blowing their orange fires
with those same six hundred year old ravens
afterwards, and always a crescent moon.
But Bosch was wrong about how a man falls
In his Descent of the Damned into Hell
not handed to the air like a new bride,
or set down into space like firewood,
but arms out forward, braced, and on his knees
like a child's doubtful Indian dive,
but holding, past fear, and on both knees.
A parody of some liveable fall
with the river a lifetime below him.
The rest was just as Bosch warned us it'd be
and I'm not offended at our likeness:
demon-apes, empty of everything else,
prehensile hands, demon-hands, just like mine.
by Contributing Poet Eliot khalil Wilson Copyright © 2015
VWP 2015 First published in VietnamWarPoetry.com
Designing a Bird from Memory in Jack's Skin Kitchen
We hated everything below us.
We'd come to hate the ground itself,
to dread the heavy ropes of gravity
drawing us down from blue
to a brooding green
which would billow in tan dust
like waves of fistic clouds.
We'd come to kill
the afternoons, to evade
the blanket heat by flying out of rifle reach
and dropping mortar rounds through the clouds and trees,
our demented resentment
entirely non-personal.
I would come to forget Isaac
our Arab gunner with his shell carton filled with baklava
and just how mixed he was
bearded, but awash in after-shave,
dropping incendiary bombs and Hershey bars at the same time,
Viet S'mores we called it.
How he could shoot his .50 caliber, stoned on hash,
as accurate as fate itself.
How he'd shoot children and dogs,
but not women or birds. Bad luck,
he said. Even when they are dead,
women and birds remember.
I would forget how we found him later in Song Ngan Valley
mixed with the ground and chopper,
repatriated, tangled like a lover,
his broken hand up and open
as if feeling for rain,
or patiently expecting some small gratuity.
The visor of his helmet shining the same
blue-black iridescence
as the glass of Chartes cathedral.
Right here, I tell the tattoo man
giving him my arm,
A blue bird, that certain blue, with black eyes
and rising.
by Contributing Poet Eliot khalil Wilson Copyright © 2015
VWP 2015 First published in VietnamWarPoetry.com
The Armless Child
Children's Hospital: Hanoi
We hated everything below us.
We'd come to hate the ground itself,
to dread the heavy ropes of gravity
drawing us down from blue
to a brooding green
which would billow in tan dust
like waves of fistic clouds.
We'd come to kill
the afternoons, to evade
the blanket heat by flying out of rifle reach
and dropping mortar rounds through the clouds and trees,
our demented resentment
entirely non-personal.
I would come to forget Isaac
our Arab gunner with his shell carton filled with baklava
and just how mixed he was
bearded, but awash in after-shave,
dropping incendiary bombs and Hershey bars at the same time,
Viet S'mores we called it.
How he could shoot his .50 caliber, stoned on hash,
as accurate as fate itself.
How he'd shoot children and dogs,
but not women or birds. Bad luck,
he said. Even when they are dead,
women and birds remember.
I would forget how we found him later in Song Ngan Valley
mixed with the ground and chopper,
repatriated, tangled like a lover,
his broken hand up and open
as if feeling for rain,
or patiently expecting some small gratuity.
The visor of his helmet shining the same
blue-black iridescence
as the glass of Chartes cathedral.
Right here, I tell the tattoo man
giving him my arm,
A blue bird, that certain blue, with black eyes
and rising.
by Contributing Poet Eliot khalil Wilson Copyright © 2015
VWP 2015 First published in VietnamWarPoetry.com
Bio: Eliot khalil Wilson has written poems that have appeared in lots of different places.
The last one deals with the legacy of Agent Orange. He currently lives and works in Golden, Colorado.
The last one deals with the legacy of Agent Orange. He currently lives and works in Golden, Colorado.
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