Jackets
We’re in P-town looking around
as a bunch of motorcyclists ride up
on their smoking hogs. I let the butter crunch
ice cream drip down the sugar cone into
the palm of my hand
They’re older, cigarettes smoldering
in black-bearded faces, protruding
beer bellies, bluish-gray tattoos
They have hard-looking women with them
in shiny hip boots tangled blonde hair
peace sign earrings and love beads too
like in the ’60s
But nobody's worried
because as they park their bikes
we notice VIETNAM VETS
lettered on their jackets
And we feel safe then certain
and solemn for they are bigger than life
coming back from hell to tell us about it
and live among us forgiving us still
by Contributing Poet Michael Estabrook Copyright © 2015
VWP 2015 First published in VietnamWarPoetry.com
Smoking Fucking Junk
Phil flew wounded and dying soldiers
in his medical evac chopper
for a year in Nam and three times
enemy fire brought him
crashing to the ground
but he gets a big bellowing laugh
out of it today
explaining how in seconds
these magnificent monster machines
became six million dollar piles
of smoking fucking junk
and he says he laughs
because the government lost all that money
but we know it was because he cheated death
and his chopper was empty
each time it hit the ground.
by Contributing Poet Michael Estabrook Copyright © 2015
VWP 2015 First published in VietnamWarPoetry.com
Staring at Something
Phil told how some of the boys
in his platoon caught a Vietcong guerrilla
murdering innocent civilians
one a pretty pregnant girl he raped then killed
by stringing her up naked and screaming
cut open her belly with one of those jagged-
edged jungle knives just like that
out there in the open a lesson
for the other villagers so Phil
and the boys caught him
stripped him strung him up from a tree
naked like the girl then blew his balls off
watching him squirm splutter scream
and eventually bleed to death
glad to watch him die Phil said they had to do it
or they'd never be able to live with themselves
and as he was telling the story his eyes
glazed over like he was staring
at something far away that
couldn’t have really happened
by Contributing Poet Michael Estabrook Copyright © 2015
VWP 2015 First published in VietnamWarPoetry.com
Helicopter
Jimmy drives us to the club in his
battered Ford pickup suddenly a giant
khaki Chopper appears circling
banking stiff blades churning the hot
June air as it swoops down over
the trees, stopping, hovering right
above us: thank God this isn't Nam,
I say, voicing what I know is
thundering through Jimmy's
frantic mind (smoky scenes
of bleeding broken bodies; bullets,
rockets whizzing all around)
but it doesn't matter what I say,
he must pull over, wipe the sweat
from his face, and wait for his hands
to stop shaking before driving on.
by Contributing Poet Michael Estabrook Copyright © 2015
VWP 2015 First published in VietnamWarPoetry.com
We’re in P-town looking around
as a bunch of motorcyclists ride up
on their smoking hogs. I let the butter crunch
ice cream drip down the sugar cone into
the palm of my hand
They’re older, cigarettes smoldering
in black-bearded faces, protruding
beer bellies, bluish-gray tattoos
They have hard-looking women with them
in shiny hip boots tangled blonde hair
peace sign earrings and love beads too
like in the ’60s
But nobody's worried
because as they park their bikes
we notice VIETNAM VETS
lettered on their jackets
And we feel safe then certain
and solemn for they are bigger than life
coming back from hell to tell us about it
and live among us forgiving us still
by Contributing Poet Michael Estabrook Copyright © 2015
VWP 2015 First published in VietnamWarPoetry.com
Smoking Fucking Junk
Phil flew wounded and dying soldiers
in his medical evac chopper
for a year in Nam and three times
enemy fire brought him
crashing to the ground
but he gets a big bellowing laugh
out of it today
explaining how in seconds
these magnificent monster machines
became six million dollar piles
of smoking fucking junk
and he says he laughs
because the government lost all that money
but we know it was because he cheated death
and his chopper was empty
each time it hit the ground.
by Contributing Poet Michael Estabrook Copyright © 2015
VWP 2015 First published in VietnamWarPoetry.com
Staring at Something
Phil told how some of the boys
in his platoon caught a Vietcong guerrilla
murdering innocent civilians
one a pretty pregnant girl he raped then killed
by stringing her up naked and screaming
cut open her belly with one of those jagged-
edged jungle knives just like that
out there in the open a lesson
for the other villagers so Phil
and the boys caught him
stripped him strung him up from a tree
naked like the girl then blew his balls off
watching him squirm splutter scream
and eventually bleed to death
glad to watch him die Phil said they had to do it
or they'd never be able to live with themselves
and as he was telling the story his eyes
glazed over like he was staring
at something far away that
couldn’t have really happened
by Contributing Poet Michael Estabrook Copyright © 2015
VWP 2015 First published in VietnamWarPoetry.com
Helicopter
Jimmy drives us to the club in his
battered Ford pickup suddenly a giant
khaki Chopper appears circling
banking stiff blades churning the hot
June air as it swoops down over
the trees, stopping, hovering right
above us: thank God this isn't Nam,
I say, voicing what I know is
thundering through Jimmy's
frantic mind (smoky scenes
of bleeding broken bodies; bullets,
rockets whizzing all around)
but it doesn't matter what I say,
he must pull over, wipe the sweat
from his face, and wait for his hands
to stop shaking before driving on.
by Contributing Poet Michael Estabrook Copyright © 2015
VWP 2015 First published in VietnamWarPoetry.com
Bio: Michael Estabrook is a recently retired baby boomer poet, a child of the sixties freed
finally after working 40 years for "The Man" and sometimes "The Woman."
No more useless meetings under florescent lights in stuffy windowless rooms.
Now he's able to devote serious time to making better poems when he's not,
of course, trying to satisfy his wife's legendary Honey-Do List.
finally after working 40 years for "The Man" and sometimes "The Woman."
No more useless meetings under florescent lights in stuffy windowless rooms.
Now he's able to devote serious time to making better poems when he's not,
of course, trying to satisfy his wife's legendary Honey-Do List.
Except where otherwise attributed, all pages & content herein
Copyright © 2014 - 2022 Paul Hellweg VietnamWarPoetry.com All rights reserved
Westerly, Rhode Island, USA