ON MY WAY TO ITHACA
Like Vietnam in some embroiled oasis - such are the
flashbacks coming in. A Danang and a Pleiku, singing
together. Staff Sergeant Jahns was killed today.
Along this roadway, any number of trees are only
half there : 'it's the drought,' the dirigible lady says.
I scoff; incorrigible tomes want to fly from my lips.
'We've only bombed this place now for six days
straight. The only drought here now is of good
sense, and this river in running red.' Furioso.
-
When I got to where I was going : yes atop the
hill was Cornell, and arrayed down the hill was the
town. Grubmeister Fife and Drums, that old useless
bar - the college kids were hanging outside, all ready
to laugh, and their girlfriends were already blasted.
I could tell, but they wouldn't know. Girls get
drunk in their own, peculiar ways.
-
The sand road ran through the midnight jungle - I
would try to sleep, and just dream instead of murder
and ambush and attacks. The tracers and the mortars,
they keep lighting up the night sky. What should I
be doing other than this? I get no choice; I have to
fight. It's 1971 again, and my number was just all
bad. Not as bad as Staff Sergeant Jahns' number,
which was up. He was killed today.
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