Oath of Service
before Vietnam
Swear to maintain your motor skill.
Swear to resist, and yet obey,
till barring all you think or say,
you can enact your Country's will.
Swear righteously that you'll accept,
in forfeiture of blood and breath,
your friend's as well as your own death,
as long as that one will is kept.
Confirm, here, now, for all you care
of politics or common fate,
you are the lowest gear of State,
engaged and run by what you swear.
by Contributing Poet William Conelly Copyright © 2015
VWP 2015 First published in Facebook Occasional Poems 2015
The Lead Man
for Jim Fegan
Two seasons at the Air Force pulling guard
his quick, conditioned play was substitute
for greater strength; and several games he starred
with down field blocks so timely and acute
the team scored through his fierce, self-disregard.
Annealed by absolutes of thought and skill,
he played the guard again in Vietnam,
the bolt and hammer of collective will
that launched his jet with missiles and napalm
each day to interdict, engage and kill,
that called his flight out of a pig-iron sky
into an arc of anti-aircraft fire;
and though they might have banked out, hard and high,
he chose to score his target once entire,
not questioning the instant he would die.
by Contributing Poet William Conelly Copyright © 2015
VWP 2015 First published in Uncontested Grounds by The Able Muse Press, San Jose, CA 2015
R & R
He came from war zones to the sea,
its pouring out and pouring back,
its loose and slow monotony.
Along the fringe, where sight could reach,
clay lands had broken to a wrack
as fine as salt to make a beach,
and ocean was suffused with sky,
a sky like water, vast and slack,
that vision could not occupy.
Arrayed in both, a monstrous sun
swam through the empty zodiac
defining many lights as one.
Why he was there he could not say.
His purpose and a simple knack
for travel ended where he lay,
and waited, blind to shade or shelter,
for trip-work waves to arc, and crack,
and tumble further through the swelter,
as if mere waiting might rebuild
the innocence good soldiers lack,
once choices mean good people killed,
as if this hot reductive shore
could temper or refine him back,
before the peace, before the war..
by Contributing Poet William Conelly Copyright © 2015
VWP 2015 First published in Uncontested Grounds by The Able Muse Press, San Jose, CA 2015
before Vietnam
Swear to maintain your motor skill.
Swear to resist, and yet obey,
till barring all you think or say,
you can enact your Country's will.
Swear righteously that you'll accept,
in forfeiture of blood and breath,
your friend's as well as your own death,
as long as that one will is kept.
Confirm, here, now, for all you care
of politics or common fate,
you are the lowest gear of State,
engaged and run by what you swear.
by Contributing Poet William Conelly Copyright © 2015
VWP 2015 First published in Facebook Occasional Poems 2015
The Lead Man
for Jim Fegan
Two seasons at the Air Force pulling guard
his quick, conditioned play was substitute
for greater strength; and several games he starred
with down field blocks so timely and acute
the team scored through his fierce, self-disregard.
Annealed by absolutes of thought and skill,
he played the guard again in Vietnam,
the bolt and hammer of collective will
that launched his jet with missiles and napalm
each day to interdict, engage and kill,
that called his flight out of a pig-iron sky
into an arc of anti-aircraft fire;
and though they might have banked out, hard and high,
he chose to score his target once entire,
not questioning the instant he would die.
by Contributing Poet William Conelly Copyright © 2015
VWP 2015 First published in Uncontested Grounds by The Able Muse Press, San Jose, CA 2015
R & R
He came from war zones to the sea,
its pouring out and pouring back,
its loose and slow monotony.
Along the fringe, where sight could reach,
clay lands had broken to a wrack
as fine as salt to make a beach,
and ocean was suffused with sky,
a sky like water, vast and slack,
that vision could not occupy.
Arrayed in both, a monstrous sun
swam through the empty zodiac
defining many lights as one.
Why he was there he could not say.
His purpose and a simple knack
for travel ended where he lay,
and waited, blind to shade or shelter,
for trip-work waves to arc, and crack,
and tumble further through the swelter,
as if mere waiting might rebuild
the innocence good soldiers lack,
once choices mean good people killed,
as if this hot reductive shore
could temper or refine him back,
before the peace, before the war..
by Contributing Poet William Conelly Copyright © 2015
VWP 2015 First published in Uncontested Grounds by The Able Muse Press, San Jose, CA 2015
Bio: William Conelly followed his father into the military & was appointed out of the
regular Air Force to the Air Force Academy in June of 1962.
There, gradually, he came to consider himself a writer than a potential engineer or pilot.
Subsequently, age 21, he resigned from the Academy to obtain both Bachelor's
and Master's degrees in English under the distinguished American poet Edgar Bowers
at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Post graduation, after considerable stints in transport and financial services, sales and
commercial writing, Conelly returned to academia in 2000 where, by turns,
he served as an associate professor, a tutor and an instructor of creative writing.
Retired now, he is a dual citizen of the US and the UK and, with his wife,
maintains a permanent residence in the West Midlands town of Warwick..
regular Air Force to the Air Force Academy in June of 1962.
There, gradually, he came to consider himself a writer than a potential engineer or pilot.
Subsequently, age 21, he resigned from the Academy to obtain both Bachelor's
and Master's degrees in English under the distinguished American poet Edgar Bowers
at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Post graduation, after considerable stints in transport and financial services, sales and
commercial writing, Conelly returned to academia in 2000 where, by turns,
he served as an associate professor, a tutor and an instructor of creative writing.
Retired now, he is a dual citizen of the US and the UK and, with his wife,
maintains a permanent residence in the West Midlands town of Warwick..
Except where otherwise attributed, all pages & content herein
Copyright © 2014 - 2025 Paul Hellweg VietnamWarPoetry.com All rights reserved
Westerly, Rhode Island, USA