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Memories |
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O here they come again… clashing memories galore
Marching one-by-one of raging days I fought the bloody war
Rushing in, flooding in, how can I ever fight it?
I cannot hear above it gnashing… how can I ever right it?
I see my marching brothers
Beloved sons, beloved fathers
Standing so hickory straight and tall
What a picture, laughing and joking all.
Then there’s silence, as from the cobwebs of sleep I awaken
Visibly shaken
Pictures in my memory, like pages from a book, start to burn
Fire flicking, licking at the edges as I toss and turn.
I reach in desperation, try to save them
White heat too intense in seething mayhem
Distorted images curling, features, bursting in fires bloom
Like blackening toast, my buddies faces the fire does consume.
Helplessly I writhe in pain
Watching helplessly in vain
Memories screaming, crackling, with sharp snapping hisses
I see the horror in eyes that no more feel a mother’s kisses.
Tonight I will be with brothers again
Tonight I may too die, as faces dissolve in acid rain
Boiling memory burn and crinkle
Rendering apprehensive nerves white-knuckle.
Memory fogs my mind of good-hearted brothers
Smoky mist blackening countless warrior others
Standing shoulder-to-shoulder, staunchly brave
My bed wet and hot in roiling effort to save.
Nightly memory takes me back where
Days without number, in deadly darkness wait there
May peace absolve memories of that blasted war
Nightly marching from my subconscious to the fore. |
By
Gary Jacobson
Copyright 2005
Listed
August 26, 2010 |
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About
Author...
In 1966-67, Gary Jacobson served with B Co
2nd/7th 1st Air Cavalry in Vietnam as a combat
infantryman and is the recipient of the Purple
Heart.
Gary, who resides in Idaho writes stories he
hopes are never forgotten, perhaps compelled by
a Vietnamese legend that says, “All poets are
full of silver threads that rise inside them as
the moon grows large.” So Gary says he
writes because “It is that these silver
threads are words poking at me – I must let them
out. I must! I write for my brothers who cannot
bear to talk of what they’ve seen and to educate
those who haven’t the foggiest idea about the
effect that the horrors of war have on
boys-next-door.”
Visit Gary Jacobson's site for more information
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use this poem without the author's permission.
~~ Send your comments and/or use permission request to
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