Letter Home from Vietnam 

Dear father you should see this place
valleys, forests, rocky face on'
marble mountains, grass so tall
perfume rivers, crystal falls.
Emerald green from monsoon rains
well-tended fields and dusty lanes.
But I wish you'd get me out of here
the blood, the screams, the dread and fear.
A bed of earth for weeks on end
booby traps around each bend.
Burning shit and dysentery,
cordite, napalm, dead bodies
rockets mortars M16s,
rations, no sleep, kerosene.
Loaded down with heavy packs,
on the edge, just can't relax.
I've just turned twenty, I'm too young
to cope with all the things I've done.
I'm coming home but understand
I'm forever changed by Vietnam.
 

by Contributing Poet  Peter Robinson   Copyright © 2020 
VWP 2020     First published in  VietnamWarPoetry.com 

​​Bio:  Peter Robinson  writes short poems as a hobby, not published by anyone.
He was born towards the end of the Vietnam War in the north of Ireland.
It has always interested him possibly because the echoes of the war were still around
​when he was a nipper in toys and on the news.