Poems: The Way, Burn, On Both Ends, Momentous, Shelter

by Claire Lee:

The Way

Strongwilled and ignorant, with fire they came.

Domino theory, as if Vietnam were a game.

They didn’t care to match faces to names. To them,

We were all the same.

War weary and indifferent, they didn’t know what they became.

ARVN and PLAF, it was a complicated game.

After they matched dead faces to names, they knew,

They would never be the same.

One spark,

One flame.

A fire untamed.

Many deaths,

Senseless acts.

They took for themselves the blame.

They walked away, hung their heads in shame,

And did not go back the same way that they came.

Burn

US Student: They aimed at us and fired.

Vietnamese Civilian: My daughter caught on fire.

US Official: I ordered them to fire.

Vietnamese Soldier: The sky was lit on fire.

US Soldier: I lit the sky on fire.

All: I watched as it burned.

To mark the 40th anniversary of the fall of Saigon and the end of the Vietnam War, an exhibition in London by the US news agency Associated Press showcases some of its most striking images taken by photographers embedded with US troops fighting the Communist Viet Cong. Source https://www.bbc.com/news/in-pictures-32483307

On Both Ends

How many more will they send? The toll has no end.

How long will they contend? Vietnam is our country to defend.

How many more wounds to tend? We’ve no more hands to lend.

How long will they make me pretend? Only soldiers and vets call me “friend.”

When will it ever end? When will we ever comprehend?

Again and again, it is still our gap to mend.

Momentous

We fled to the embass-

“See the planes taking off!”

-ful feeling in my gut.

They told us to evacu-

“Wait! Don’t leave without us! What about my famil-”

-leaving us behind.

They hit us with their gun butt-

“You pro-”

-missed the helicopter, our only chance of escape.

We watch the 7th fleet

-ing hopes as America sails a-

Weight in my stomach as I watch them disap-

Peer past the masses stranded at

See the bloodlist-

-less, terrified, petrified.--

Shelter

The waves roll in. On the shore

Washes up a shellfish, a precious souvenir from a vacation on the beach.

That is not me. I am

Leftover debris from a storm across the sea.

I am not a shellfish. But I come quite close--

I’m selfish, looking for a shell, trying to

Make my home where there is none.

I try to put on some; none fit.

I keep searching.

The night closes in quickly.

I am not allowed to look further.

If only I could make my own shell.

But it remains forever unformed.

Nature does not let me make my home.

So I look across the waves

As the sun drowns in the sea. And I wait

For the tides to carry me away,

To wash me back

To return to where I came from

Or never to reach my destination.

But for all I know, there is

More solace in the ocean blues

Than the deserted shore.

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Photo Source https://teara.govt.nz/en/map/32701/the-domino-theory