Vietnam War Memorial 

This laceration in the earth
where napalm
has fallen and burned it,
scorched it to char.

This unclosing wound
enclosing us in our mass grave,
slowly, slowly, so slowly.

This lipstick stain of this war’s black kiss. 


by Contributing Poet  J. R. Solonche Copyright © 2026 
VWP 2026     First published in  VietnamWarPoetry.com 

​

Mike's Painting and Paper Hanging 

While stripping paper from the walls,
he told me stories of the war in Vietnam, 
how the VC would bring tanks out of the jungle
and onto the beach when the sea was calm 
and smooth as glass, then fire tank shells 
along the surface toward his ship the way 
boys skip flat stones across a pond, of how 
one day he was looking just the right way
to see a column of black smoke rising 
from their sister ship, Hey, they’re not supposed 
to clean their stacks in broad daylight like that, 
and then realized a tank shell had hit it 
after having missed his own, how at night, 
on after lookout, alone with nothing to do there
in the dark, he’d write poetry, and recited one 
that began, Listen and hear a tale of woe,
which went on like some old ballad of war, 
full of words like heroes, honor, and hell, 
like something out of The Charge of the Light Brigade,
only not anywhere as good, but I liked the music it made,
the ocean-shaking grunt of it, the gurgling groan 
of an engine, the words exploding in his mouth. 


by Contributing Poet  J. R. Solonche   Copyright © 2026 
VWP 2026     First published in  VietnamWarPoetry.com 

Bio:  J. R. Solonche  Nominated for the Eric Hoffer Book Award, twice for the National Book Award and three times
for the Pulitzer Prize, J.R. Solonche is the author of more than 50 books of poetry and coauthor
of another. He lives in the Hudson Valley.