5986. I HAVE NOTHING

I HAVE NOTHING

I have nothing now, semolina wheatface you,

and I'm going to start something quite new.

I have a table of my own at Markson's Jetting

Cafe. Red wine on the table, a few cigarettes, 

rolled and ready in my pocket. People around,

not many, but those who are are quality types. I'm

tired of the salacious bus-riders who yearn to talk.

Please remain silent; to reply I balk.

-

In 1964 I was still forming something. There was

a man on the TV, going on about bombs, reading

a dull paper  -  filled with lies as well  -  about the

Tonkin Gulf Resolution. Most all of those senators

and congressmen around him are dead now, and

they should have been dead then; and I should have

killed them. And him as well.

-

I ask you: how many lives are ruined by bastards?

Can you even count them, or remember? I held a

long rifle in my hands, right below the Huey and the

nearby Medivac copters  -  blades spinning, all

set to go. I was supposed to protect the 'periphery' 

from any intruders  -  shoot to kill, not just main.

-

Alas, I really couldn't hear a thing  -  just people in

fatigues endlessly talking  -  barking more like it,

commands and directives, understandings and plans.

Back then, it was nothing to see crumpled bodies

half-dead in the delta mud. We were killing a nation

while fighting a war  -  two nations, in fact, and

declared nonetheless. Killing the Cong and killing

ourselves as well. Fuck them all, then, fuck them.