FROM 'NAM TO NOW

Unsung, these heroes of
oh, say, forty years past, clutch
pieces of lives
like dead bouquets
to fragments of hearts
left alone to exist
in purgatory for their deeds,
sequestered by the darkness
of foul words

Returning from Hell
to find Hell here, presented,
boldly packaged, as
vile gift, indeed, from
noble pacifists (gentle souls!)
who hated war, who
hated killing…didn’t
we all?

These kind, loving hearts
spit at, cursed,
the cream of our youth
who came home old – crippled
by memories – as dead in
spirit as
the truly dead, but
never, never at rest
like buried bones

They, “concerned” citizens,
sniffed and savored
the rarified air of their
pious justifications, ignored
hard fact, and only now,
too late, get a whiff
of that putrid stench
of their own disgrace

…and see how they
now mourn
how easy it was to lose
their souls in the decimation
of the those
blameless G.I.s

–Jo VonBargen 2013

(First published in “Numbered Days” as J. J. King,
by Chakraborty Press, Calcutta,
India, 1990)

Read on the website: http://twobitbard.weebly.com/2/post/2013/01/from-nam-to-now-by-jo-vonbargen.html