I IX 2018, late at night
1.
This day began the day I killed that boy.
We were all boys then, ourselves fresh from school,
Marx-filled, piss-burning: Fight for our nation!
My honored parents—revolutionists,
medical cadre—begged, Find other ways
to serve, I smiled, yes. Then we all raced to
the barracks, signed up, shipped out in full bloom:
The People’s Army of Vietnam, quyết thắng!
Easter Offensive, our glory, ahead.
That day came quite soon: New village, no plan.
Pale, Thạch flanked out left, looking one step from
shitting himself dry. I flanked to the right --
hill people’s hovels far back behind me.
This place needs progress, I thought, and recalled
Lenin’s deft words--Electrification,
Soviet power. Then, Thạch out of sight,
myself left alone. Green: Everything green.
Carefully stepping, I heard soft rustling
behind nearby brush: Crouching and quaking,
too-large uniform, gun on the ground—I
bowed to his temple, fired twice with no thought.
Bone blood and innards somehow surprised me.
Strange, disorderly; no dialectic.
Then new ARVNs rose. All green became sound.
No longer alone. Red: Everything red.
Friends, and my right arm—they stayed in the hills.
But we’d held the line, I’d started the fray;
By accident’s grace I’d brought victory.
While still in clinic, I got my rewards:
Huân chương quân công, some plush new orders.
Engineering school. One good hand, enough:
Back to class for the Revolution now!
Mathematics, and physics, and Russian.
Healing in clinic, late after lights out,
I wondered what strings my parents had pulled.
And so the next day, the Party man came.
We need a cadre, help back in Hanoi.
A little side work before your training.
Of course I agreed. Was this the bargain?
It didn’t really matter anyway.
They stamped my papers. I thought of the boy.
2.
Some hoped to stop the new bombing, thinking
with his father retired, now it might work.
Some of the rest craved one last crack, plotting
their propaganda coup, on a hard case.
But with Accords, deals being made, maybe
a release likely soon, I thought it was
Just an old psych warfare reflex. Inside
Hỏa Lò prison I went, straight for his cell.
A simple plan. Start with small talk, smiling:
You refused your release, a true hero?
I offered smokes with my left hand, lighting
one so he would see clear, the right was lost.
Then with calm tones, I made the case: quite plain,
what his jailors wanted—the People’s needs.
He gave a psych warfare reflex: Silent,
his eyes soft with hatred: Go to hell, kid.
And so I did. Later that night, Bạch Mai
exploded in sky fire: My parents died.
Pulling late shifts at hospital, tireless,
they were lost side by side. Americans
later swore that they’d aimed for the airfield.
I helped combing wreckage, worked day and night
till we had found
all of the dead. I slept
three days, I hoped to die, but I did not.
Now forced to live, past all my pride, I went
to Hỏa Lò, spoke calmly, yet with resolve:
I cannot try befriending him—he’s the
enemy, his brothers—they rained this fire.
They sent me home, with some deskwork. At night
I cleaned the whole house, the ancestor shrines,
expecting my new orders to vanish.
Each day, I hoped they’d go, but they did not.
Waiting to leave, my Moscow flight, I saw
the boy and his parents. Thought how it felt.
Waiting to learn, fresh in Russia, I felt
killing a countryman. Sound of the red.
Soon to return, new engineer, I heard
echoes from cousins or, long lost comrades,
or any Vietnamese with eyes like mine.
Despite the snow, the sound was undying.
3.
Hanoi, so different now! And I’m proud
that some of the changes are mine. For years
after war, I helped rebuild the nation,
then helped it find new heights. Our skyline?
Ah, yes—I built many of those towers.
And while I remain a strong socialist,
there’s no doubt I have done well for myself.
This villa on the West Lake speaks to that.
The morning light here is quite glorious.
You can see clear all the way to Trúc Bạch
where my prisoner fell, nearly drowning.
At the capture monument, new blood left
bouquets in respect, for his drive to heal
our relations after war. I did not.
I leave very little now, from this place.
I mostly sit, with TV, computer,
and stacks of books. So I change the channels,
sip foreign liquor, and read more about
America’s Civil War: A hobby
for an old man pretending to a life
of the mind, the People's work done now, just
echoes left. Shiloh, Vicksburg, Gettysburg,
The first and second battles of Bull Run:
Why do countrymen kill their own brothers?
Well. Now Thạch is here. He dropped by Trúc Bạch
on his way here, he said, just curious.
He rose after war to high Party rank,
nationalist line holding firm. So now,
late at night, we’re both watching the service,
news coverage live from America.
The Senator’s daughter, young stout and blonde,
verges on tears as she venerates him.
My wife brings a new plate of nem nướng.
I’ve got the liquor, but Thạch only scowls:
I know he helped forge rapprochement, but, still--
You can’t overlook it! That lot were all
war criminals! Look in the audience--
That old bastard Kissinger! Still not dead!
It must mean Hell’s full! War criminals all,
the lot of them! I ponder, and pour us
more Johnnie Walker Red: Two shots, sharp, true.
My right arm throbs plain as day. Yes, I say,
But wars have many crimes. In Washington,
the blonde smiles, cries, smiles again, soldiers on.
I think of the boy
once more, then I take
A nem nướng from the plate, chew it up,
down it with the whisky in one hard gulp.
An unforgettable combination.
On the screen, all stand, applaud, mourn their dead.
by Contributing Poet I. D. Edgewater Copyright © 2023
VWP 2023 First published in VietnamWarPoetry.com
1.
This day began the day I killed that boy.
We were all boys then, ourselves fresh from school,
Marx-filled, piss-burning: Fight for our nation!
My honored parents—revolutionists,
medical cadre—begged, Find other ways
to serve, I smiled, yes. Then we all raced to
the barracks, signed up, shipped out in full bloom:
The People’s Army of Vietnam, quyết thắng!
Easter Offensive, our glory, ahead.
That day came quite soon: New village, no plan.
Pale, Thạch flanked out left, looking one step from
shitting himself dry. I flanked to the right --
hill people’s hovels far back behind me.
This place needs progress, I thought, and recalled
Lenin’s deft words--Electrification,
Soviet power. Then, Thạch out of sight,
myself left alone. Green: Everything green.
Carefully stepping, I heard soft rustling
behind nearby brush: Crouching and quaking,
too-large uniform, gun on the ground—I
bowed to his temple, fired twice with no thought.
Bone blood and innards somehow surprised me.
Strange, disorderly; no dialectic.
Then new ARVNs rose. All green became sound.
No longer alone. Red: Everything red.
Friends, and my right arm—they stayed in the hills.
But we’d held the line, I’d started the fray;
By accident’s grace I’d brought victory.
While still in clinic, I got my rewards:
Huân chương quân công, some plush new orders.
Engineering school. One good hand, enough:
Back to class for the Revolution now!
Mathematics, and physics, and Russian.
Healing in clinic, late after lights out,
I wondered what strings my parents had pulled.
And so the next day, the Party man came.
We need a cadre, help back in Hanoi.
A little side work before your training.
Of course I agreed. Was this the bargain?
It didn’t really matter anyway.
They stamped my papers. I thought of the boy.
2.
Some hoped to stop the new bombing, thinking
with his father retired, now it might work.
Some of the rest craved one last crack, plotting
their propaganda coup, on a hard case.
But with Accords, deals being made, maybe
a release likely soon, I thought it was
Just an old psych warfare reflex. Inside
Hỏa Lò prison I went, straight for his cell.
A simple plan. Start with small talk, smiling:
You refused your release, a true hero?
I offered smokes with my left hand, lighting
one so he would see clear, the right was lost.
Then with calm tones, I made the case: quite plain,
what his jailors wanted—the People’s needs.
He gave a psych warfare reflex: Silent,
his eyes soft with hatred: Go to hell, kid.
And so I did. Later that night, Bạch Mai
exploded in sky fire: My parents died.
Pulling late shifts at hospital, tireless,
they were lost side by side. Americans
later swore that they’d aimed for the airfield.
I helped combing wreckage, worked day and night
till we had found
all of the dead. I slept
three days, I hoped to die, but I did not.
Now forced to live, past all my pride, I went
to Hỏa Lò, spoke calmly, yet with resolve:
I cannot try befriending him—he’s the
enemy, his brothers—they rained this fire.
They sent me home, with some deskwork. At night
I cleaned the whole house, the ancestor shrines,
expecting my new orders to vanish.
Each day, I hoped they’d go, but they did not.
Waiting to leave, my Moscow flight, I saw
the boy and his parents. Thought how it felt.
Waiting to learn, fresh in Russia, I felt
killing a countryman. Sound of the red.
Soon to return, new engineer, I heard
echoes from cousins or, long lost comrades,
or any Vietnamese with eyes like mine.
Despite the snow, the sound was undying.
3.
Hanoi, so different now! And I’m proud
that some of the changes are mine. For years
after war, I helped rebuild the nation,
then helped it find new heights. Our skyline?
Ah, yes—I built many of those towers.
And while I remain a strong socialist,
there’s no doubt I have done well for myself.
This villa on the West Lake speaks to that.
The morning light here is quite glorious.
You can see clear all the way to Trúc Bạch
where my prisoner fell, nearly drowning.
At the capture monument, new blood left
bouquets in respect, for his drive to heal
our relations after war. I did not.
I leave very little now, from this place.
I mostly sit, with TV, computer,
and stacks of books. So I change the channels,
sip foreign liquor, and read more about
America’s Civil War: A hobby
for an old man pretending to a life
of the mind, the People's work done now, just
echoes left. Shiloh, Vicksburg, Gettysburg,
The first and second battles of Bull Run:
Why do countrymen kill their own brothers?
Well. Now Thạch is here. He dropped by Trúc Bạch
on his way here, he said, just curious.
He rose after war to high Party rank,
nationalist line holding firm. So now,
late at night, we’re both watching the service,
news coverage live from America.
The Senator’s daughter, young stout and blonde,
verges on tears as she venerates him.
My wife brings a new plate of nem nướng.
I’ve got the liquor, but Thạch only scowls:
I know he helped forge rapprochement, but, still--
You can’t overlook it! That lot were all
war criminals! Look in the audience--
That old bastard Kissinger! Still not dead!
It must mean Hell’s full! War criminals all,
the lot of them! I ponder, and pour us
more Johnnie Walker Red: Two shots, sharp, true.
My right arm throbs plain as day. Yes, I say,
But wars have many crimes. In Washington,
the blonde smiles, cries, smiles again, soldiers on.
I think of the boy
once more, then I take
A nem nướng from the plate, chew it up,
down it with the whisky in one hard gulp.
An unforgettable combination.
On the screen, all stand, applaud, mourn their dead.
by Contributing Poet I. D. Edgewater Copyright © 2023
VWP 2023 First published in VietnamWarPoetry.com
Bio: I. D. Edgewater I was a child during the Vietnam War. My father was active duty in Navy communications and silently objected to the war, except at home. This was difficult for all concerned. Later on, I lived in Hanoi in 1992 while working on a degree. I met veterans from all sides. Now I am working on a new degree, and write—for example, a novel-in-progress. I am not by nature a lyric poet, hence, this small structured story. ([email protected])
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