​Across the Gangplank

​I walked across the gangplank,
Onto that all too familiar ship,
Knowing all too well
That I could tumble 
Into very deep holds.
I walked across anyway.
I slipped on an unkindness
Of loose and slippery thoughts
That shoved me down
Ladders and passageways,
Headlong into violent memories.
Memories that I had thrown,
And re-thrown,
Over and over again,
Into that very deep hold
Far below decks,
Under the chain locker
Of my busy life.
The memories tied my naked body down.
They sewed my eyelids
Wide, wide, wide open
With threads of tiny, jagged sea-salt.
They poured a waterfall of sharp,
Stinging visions
Of soldiers running,
Of Hueys zooming to and fro,
Of MiGs screeching overhead,
Of our five-inch gun blasting 
Over and over and over again,
Over my face until I cried, 
Stop!
Oh, please stop!
I don’t want to see this again.
I don’t want to feel this again. 
I don’t want to die like this again.


​by Contributing Poet  Mushroom Montoya   Copyright © 2020 
VWP 2020       

Bio:  Mushroom Montoya  circumnavigated the globe after killing young boys, old men, women, and children in Vietnam aboard the USS Trippe DE1075 and the USS Truxtun DLGN35. Now, as a shaman, he heals the planet one person at a time. As an author and poet, he heals the planet one poem and one book at a time. As a bereaved father he advocates for organ donation. As an adoptive parent, he advocates for adoption, especially of older children who all too often don’t get adopted. As an architect, he designed the country’s largest sleep studies lab for the Veterans Medical Center in Long Beach, among many other facilities.
http://creative-mushroom.blogspot.com/
http://mushroom-2005.blogspot.com/
http://vietnambodycount.blogspot.com/