Wooden Walls 

Dedicated to The Vietnam Veterans at SJSU
 --Tôi không có lựa chọn 
 
Wooden walls ascend—climb two stories high, house
tar stained tin ashtrays for vet’s hand rolled cigarettes;
an asbestos ceiling hangs tall above billowing smoke
curling for endurance, passing through rings that seem
afloat in every direction—each bearing the signature of a
war weary veteran, recalling memories best forgot in
foxhole hell or napalm nightmares--
scars that will fester…burns that will sear
feverish minds and scorched skeletal structures eternally:
Nóng quá, nóng quá!
 
Voices heard within wooden walls resound like phantom lieutenants
clamoring through jungle decay, above mortars shells and gunfire--
vets who left families as liberators and returned home invisible,
unwelcomed heroes, outsiders, malcontents, and junkies--
Tôi không hiểu! Tôi không hiểu!
The past’s never lost in the VA present: Tôi  sợ hãi; Tôi sợ hãi.
still soldiers, they assemble like motley medieval Knights Templar,
dismiss shell-shocked stories—misguided military quest details,
favoring frequent pilgrimages to physical therapists, psychoanalysts,
marriage counselors, and professors who try piecing dysfunctional lives together
 
Wooden walls sheltered vets like a landlocked battleship;
brushing shoulders with Tower Hall where spectral Vincent Price emerged
meticulous, mysterious against bellicose ivy smothering the gothic monolith,
lecturing on art, disappearing into shadows, reemerging amid rainbows;
on his far right, the termite-ridden barricade also breathed new life into
muted conversationalists, Vietnam Vets reentering society enjoying
extended VA benefits for South East Asian freedom fighters;
lodged in twisted half desks, they’d carve names, companies, epithets
chronicling forty additional hours to the GI Bill, respite from reoccurring gloom.
Tôi bị lạc! Tôi bị lạc!
 

by Contributing Poet  Sterling Warner   Copyright © 2022 
VWP 2022     First published in  VietnamWarPoetry.com  

Bio:  Sterling Warner is an award-winning author, poet, and Evergreen Valley College English Professor, Sterling Warner’s works have appeared in many literary magazines, journals, and anthologies including Trouvaille Review, Shot Glass Journal, Danse Macabre, Ekphrastic Review, and Sparks of Calliope. Warner’s collections of poetry include Rags and Feathers, Without Wheels, ShadowCat, Edges, Memento Mori, Serpent’s Tooth, and Flytraps (2022)—as well as Masques: Flash Fiction & Short Stories. Currently, Warner writes, hosts/participates in “virtual” poetry readings, and enjoys retirement in Washington.