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VFPLI Poets and Writers
Thomas Brinson,
VFPLI Poet Laureate
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UNTITLED
Another New Year rolls around
through sufferings
of time endlessly spent
Another foreign land
bombed by weaponry made in the good, old US of A
cluster bombs
depleted uranium
willy peter
not exactly change we can believe in
Another occasion
to plea to some god somewhere not present
for act-as-if forgiveness
through clenched teeth and squeezed soul
for what the elites know too well they do
to the little children and the elderly
spinning lies to themselves and to all of us
puffed with self-righteous, indignant patriotic pride
raucously joking all the way to the bank
Another opportunity
to detach if only a smidgen
from re-awakened night terrors
of other children, other elderly
moaning, mewing, whimpering
in jungle war of forever lost youth
Another chance
to stuff down the seething rage
that never ceases
in the middle of
this sleepless night
Another possibility faint, fleeting
tortuously breathing in, breathing out
losing count of breaths again and again
to surrender to the bottomless pit of grief
that passeth all understanding
January 6, 2009
Long Beach, NY
War Person
Deep grief rages unresolved within me
unquenchable tears squeezed dry unreleasingly flow
no bottom, no relief, no end
always there just behind awareness ready to spring forth
at the drop of a memory
the turn of a thought about war
like just what happened on this silver bird
winging its way skyward toward Buffalo
through this brilliantly bright New York State early summer morning
over checkered fields of sundry muted green-browns
and haphazard windings of rivers and roads
with the tears just streaming again down
my sun-glassed-and-deeply-tanned countenance
while my fellow yuppie business-person passengers
pass the time behind designer attaché cases or Wall Street Journals
W . . . A . . . R
It haunts me
It pursues me
It badgers me
casting a pallor of gloom throughout my being
My dark obsession with war
My love-hate relationship with war
My intrusive preoccupation with war
It seems has always been with me
Jesus -- I was a war-baby
conceived at the turning point of “The Good War”
So hurtfully shamed I was that Daddy stayed stateside
didn’t fight
teaching navigation to the poor bastards who got shot up over Dresden or Okinawa
when taunted by snot-nosed playmates in wooded forts -- no trophies for me to brandish
An early memory is listening with Mom by the new kitchen sink
to a radio broadcast of Eisenhower
consummate Father-General explaining Korea
I remember how precious was the black plastic Tommy machine-gun
so shiny with the bright blood-red bullets
a ten-year-old’s Christmas present to celebrate
As a barely aware boy child voraciously I read
every war novel and voluminous war history I could clutch my chubby hands on
On Saturday afternoons again and again and again we’d watch the heroic endeavors
splashed on silvered screen in darkened matinees of Wayne McQueen Murphy & Peck
or see reruns in flickering tv black and white of Combat Flash Gordon Blackhawk
Very ironic my disappointment and already seething resentment
fearfully whispering to buddies in dimming Boy Scout campfire light
that we wouldn’t have a war to valiantly perform acts of courage in
when the ‘56 Suez Canal crises sputtered to a truce without hostilities
just as Vietnam loomed miniscule still to stain inexorably darker
blotting itself right in the middle of our generation
We got our war after all
Compelled I was to go
to volunteer
to experience that little war
would-be and dirty
of my generation
despite my abhorrence and disgust
my soul-quaking doubt
For Christ sake
I was a Peacenik demonstrator
and an advanced ROTC cadet in college
both horrified and fascinated by my role of officer-soldier
My favorite collegiate theatrical role was Harry Hotspur, the angry warrior prince in Henry IV, Part One
Manically I dreamed blood-dark dreams of gallant glory violently suicidal
charging up some thickened jungle slope into a hail-fire of slicing AK-47 rounds
to have Charlie do to me what I was too chicken to do to myself
even when blitzed on shots of bar whiskey and San Miguel
And it so happened despite my fervent death-wish to the contrary I survived
* * *
Now almost two decades later son Thomas barely six
despite Sara’s and my strong prohibition against guns or war toys
is fixated upon Ninja Turtles GI Joe Transformers Commando Karate Kid
Thusly do we teach our gender the race-consciousness of war
Just this Saturday past in K-Mark he wanted so passionately the guerrilla-style M-16
“Please, Dad, Please. It’s only a toy, Dad. Please,” his beaming face begged up at me
So much a part of me wanted him to have it
and one for me too
Then I could take him to some deep dark sun-patched wood
to charge through some mutually fantasized virtual image of heroically routing
a dreaded dastardly enemy’s ambush in gallant uphill rush
for freedom for the redwhite&blue
for Momma and the darlin’ little sweetheart way back in some homeland
To show him
the ropes
the tricks
the little secrets
of successfully challenging fate again and again by repeated rolls of the combat dice
To play war games (again) with him
Sweet Buddha sometimes I despair
how I can ever teach him to abhor what so much a part of me still so loves
Star Wars
The Road Warrior
Enemies
my precious New York Giants even
sublimated wish fulfillments to go forth and kill
Sara wishes for me not to be a woman
to suffer through the monthly cycle of hormones
I wish for her not to be a man
to suffer through this obsession with killing
Neat balance
* * *So what do I conclude
from all this fucking shit
Maybe just perhaps
via this process of working through
yet once again my meta-grief about war
my war in particular
I shall somehow
become more a peacemaker
waging peace
No war is worth ever one single tearEpilogue, Written the Morning of November 18, 2004:
I sit here and look out the window of the Yasaka Hotel.
The rolling waves of the South China Sea kiss the Nha Trang beach
In the distance rising piles of green, misty mountains kiss the far horizon
It is 21 years since I wrote this poem; 37 years since my war.
Our second return trip to the beautiful and mysterious land of Vietnam
comes to a close. I reflect upon the good service we have done,
the healing camaraderie and fellowship we have shared.
I am filled with peace and serenity , an acceptance that truly
I need no more study war--nor hate it, nor love it, nor rail about it, nor embrace it
I don’t even have to serve any more as a peacemaker in Sri Lanka,
seeking to balance what happened those long thirty-seven years ago here.
I can just let my war and all war be,
choosing to be more mindful with each passing breath
of the bountiful gifts I am graced with . . .
* * * * *
parade
a ticker tape parade
up Broadway
from Battery Park
to City Hall Plaza
the Canyon of Heroes
Super Bowl XLII Champions
New York Giants
ride on blue, red and white floats
surrounded by screaming adulations
of 3,000,000 New York City fans
piled deep on both sidewalks
spilling down each intersecting street
a diehard, bleeding Big Blue fan
since 1956 when another Ole Miss QB,
Charlie Conerly, led the Giants to Championships
while I played high school football,
a St. Joe Rebel in Jackson, Mississippi
my heart swells near bursting
so proud of my team in my adopted hometown
New York Fuckin’ City
black Strahan and good ole white boy, Eli
smile and hug and take pictures of each other
all the Giants, players and coaches, video and take pictures
of the rabid fans videoing and taking pictures of them
rain begins to fall as speeches are speeched
keys to the city are distributed to all
rousing cheers pile high as Michael demonstrated
“WE WILL STOMP YOU OUT”
and that’s what was done to the mighty Pats, 18 & ONE
almost as soon as it began the celebration is over it seems
the glow of remembered elation spreads through my Giant-blue veins
re-envisioning the grand march up the Canyon of Heroes
but then, an intruding thought niggles for attention
unholy shit, not once, nary a passing reference at all
by anyone, politicians, announcers, coaches, players, fans
to the stark reality of Iraq and Afghanistan
to US Armed services personnel dying, being mutilated
not for country nor noble cause, but for each other
as well as the thousands, nay millions of Iraqi, Afghan casualties
nothing, nada, no way, don’t rain reality on this parade
oh my god, another thought slams into my gut
transforming elation into bile
my beloved New York Giants
Champions of Super Bowl XLII and the whole wide world
are part of the bread and circus, Psyops cover up
as much a part of infortainment big media distraction
smoke and mirrors on wide screen HDTVs
as American Idol, the Simpsons, Survivor, all the shopping channels -- oh fuck!
I get very quiet, go deep inside to that place of never-ending grief
notch one more loss of endless war on my Karmic leather belt of pain
turn off my widescreen HDTV, stare at the shimmering Atlantic sea
February 8, 2008
Long Beach, NY
