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Contributor: Gary Jacobson || Poem Categories

Memory Box country as flag
My memory box
Protected by a thousand secret locks
Holds memories of when I became a man
Meditating of a far off time in Vietnam
Now held close and deep inside
Lined with pain and pride
Protecting long forgotten names
Remembered faces in that time of games
Memories lie there, crumbling to dust there
One eclipsing others in malevolence does stare
Wrenching heart-strings with great despair.

From time to time
Horrors leap from my Pandora’s box
Breaking its thousand locks
Like a whirlwind my being rocks
Leaps forth a beast through the night ridden
Demons arise from light of day hidden
Awake in the nights still listening
Awakened by winds of war again stirring
Watching throughout the day agitating
Young men’s hearts foolish hatreds whipping.

Memories tearing at my mind drive me crazy
Disillusioned by war’s bloody fantasy
Lost forever through time unwind my innate trust
Unraveled strong values deteriorating now but rust
Once again dying mid thunder and lightning
Again neglected guns and explosions hearing
Abandoned again in jungle fever sweating
Dismayed by hateful talk of renewed war
Released yet again that droning bore
Shouting back from a past I frightfully abhor.

Again war’s rhetoric takes me back
Again to shattered heart of long ago attack
A time ripped from a boys sensibilities
Beleaguers shredded memories
Reincarnated horrors my mind rack
Dark tides roll into a brain inky black
Honor wreaked in havoc from meager civilities
Nightmarish atrocities
Brought to life in a terrible dream
Yanking from my soul again a primal scream.

till I hide again the box
Lock its thousand locks
Wipe away my mournful tear
Mend again the wounds its scorching sear
Resolve never to forget brothers dear
Far from the scene of battle fled
Burying in my box again the dead
Hiding distant memories my very soul did burn
Wondering when will we ever learn
Must histories past always, always return?
By Gary Jacobson
Copyright 2003
Listed
August 27, 2010
 

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

It is illegal to use this poem without the author's permission.
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