The Distilled Essence of Daphne: veterans

Showing posts with label veterans. Show all posts

Saturday, June 4, 2011

The Sand Flea Funeral

The Sand Flea Funeral

Welcome to Parris Island,

Some news skills you will command.

That even the Devil left this place—

Said he needed a cooler space.

So let me tell you what’s the story.

You do what I say, you morning glory.

If I decide to say you stand,

Don’t you dare move a hand.

If a sand flea bites your face,

Soldier, don’t you me disgrace.

If you cannot let him pass—

Slap him, pansy, I’ll have your ass!

For that Sand Flea is a Marine Corps bug—

Kill it, and you’re just a slimy slug.

Full Marine Corps burial you will give.

So, I strongly advise you: Let the bug live.

Decoration Day

Decoration Day

The week before Decoration Day

To each veteran’s plot we’d go

To mow and clean up,

To plant flags to fly,

And sow some seeds to grow.

To be there.

To remember.

To honor.

The ancestors would somehow know.

So to each cemetery we’d go—

Woodland, The Bradshaw Cemetery,

Some on hilltops behind farmhouses,

Some in the woods or along

John’s Creek, Elkin’s Creek, and more…

Some easy access,

Some quite a climb.

Did the spirits see us there?

Were they comforted that the dead were not forgotten?

That their sacrifices were honored?

Then we’d go home.

Fly the flag.

Fix a family feast to be eaten after

The Parade…

The traditions are the same now

Even though they changed the name.

Memorial or Decoration…

The ancestors somehow would know.

“Macam Tiae Lembu!”

“Macam Tiae Lembu!”

(Malay for “Sounds Like a Cow Shitting!”)

For My Husband Avalon Ajang Ledong—

Royal Malaysian Army, Sarawak Rangers

Army training can be a chore;

In boot camp, abuse is piled on more.

You can train both days and nights

And don’t you worry about your rights…

For you have none.

Drill sergeant will bark if you are wrong.

Sometimes he’ll make you bark along.

You’ll not be left to be long idled.

You’ll find to what you’re entitled…

If you live long.

Marching here, marching there;

You’ll go marching everywhere.

You’ll go marching in the rain.

You’ll be marching while insane.

You’ll go marching up a hill.

Oh, you’ll like the marching drill.

When marching sergeant says you stop,

Don’t you let your feet ker-plop.

Just one POP he wants to hear

Or he’ll shout straight in your ear…

“Macam tiae lembu!”

Hard Facts Harder Faced

Hard Facts Harder Faced

Who said our soldiers could not be psychos?

Who said we always are saints?

Where is it written we do the right thing

And never show evil or taint?

War is hell, lest we forget it,

And crimes of war even much more…

Can we train a human to kill, not to feel,

Without evil allowed in that door?

Rape is a tool and an agent of war.

So is massacre, torture, mayhem.

Even a good man can snap to a monster

And live only to slay ‘em.

None of us are guiltless, much to our pain,

But we are trapped in this way,

If ever we forget the humanity of victims

From Coshocton to Mai Lai.

And Still the Channel to Cross

And Still the Channel to Cross

Looking around,

Nerves stretched taut,

The winds and waters churning.

All are pale.

None will return.

Deep terror in us burning.

Normandy,

Damn those cliffs,

A beach changed to bloody swampland…

Though thousands die

To win that beach

From Hell’s elitist command.

Friday, June 3, 2011

Ironton’s Memorial Day Parade

Ironton’s Memorial Day Parade

To remember to honor and to celebrate,

To decorate the graves of those who fought…

Ironton parades through most of the middle of town—

Bands, floats, horses, clowns…

But most of all, people—

People of all types and ages.

Used to be said, if you were able,

You marched.

Whole classes of school children marched.

Men alongside the streets took off their hats,

And everyone put a hand to heart.

I remember the hours of preparation:

With chicken wire and tissue on trucks,

The band practices and marches,

Or, even Brownies getting scout cheers and songs right…

To ride in a squad car, a fire truck or an Army-Navy Duck…

Just to be in The Parade.

Now people come from everywhere to see our parade,

Our Parade…longest lasting…and proud.

May the graves be decorated,

The flag flown free;

May the flowers thrown on the River

Say thank you for liberty…

And may Ironton ever be able

To march for memory.

Those Orange Poppies

Those Orange Poppies

I remember the old men standing in front of Kresges

Selling small paper poppies…

Small orange flowers on a wire

That we hooked onto ourselves with pride—

‘Though some hooked them on to show they’d paid their buck,

But me, with a mix bittersweet, mostly sad—

Were always the skies gray those days,

Threatening rain?

Or, was it my heart would burst

Seeing those men whose smiles…

Smiles that never quite hid

Deeply wounded,

Woefully sad eyes?

She Never Married

She Never Married

For Vivian Taylor, A Friend and Landlady

(*loosely based on her story)

“Sweet lover, be safe as you fly from this place

To your missions in the Pacific.

I will await your return for then do we wed

After Guam, Midway, and ‘Unspecific.’”

Many letters she wrote, many pictures she sent,

Care packages when she was able…

While meanwhile she worked as a nurse and an aide

Though times were very unstable.

Sometimes he would write when he had the time

For combat, of time, was commanding.

Assuring him forever she would be true

Even though he was not so demanding.

This gave them both hope and a measure of joy

In the face of great fearful unknowing

Of where he would be, or if he would be

A part of a blood crop then sowing.

A year thereabout after he flew

Away from his love at the airport,

Two soldiers in blue came to her home

With the most regrettable report.

She took it quite well until they were gone

Then she collapsed on the sunroom divan,

Crying, “Sweet lover, be safe as you fly from this place

Until I join you in your mission in heaven.”

Flashback to Mekong: The War in Viet Nam

Flashback to Mekong: The War in Viet Nam

For Dustin Massie, Daniel Massie, David Massie,

Wayne Massie, and James Delong, My Cousins Who

All served willingly and honorably

And still the evil fought through lives

In minds and bodies all tattered

With memories of a limb or an ear

Or a child blown up and scattered.

Flashback to the now of the time when we hid

From the nightmare of still living

With a best friend’s right arm,

All that was left, of the life he was giving…

For a country who hated us…

In a country who hated us…

No reprieve.

Nineteen years old and proud of this land

Of our birth, our family, and teaching,

Many were drafted, so they couldn’t say no,

Regardless of the masses loud screeching.

War heroes, yeah right, stoned out of our minds

Blinding to terrors more real

Than any horror king knows,

And in our souls they live with us still…

For a country who hated us…

In a country who hated us…

No reprieve.

A Mother Cries for Her Fallen Son

A Mother Cries for Her Fallen Son

For Mrs. Goldcamp, Our Neighbor

Never will the guns be so silent

As the silence after death

Of those fallen to fight “the cause juste.”

Is a common life so shorn

Or youth so plentiful

To be offered up this way

By the wrathful God

Who has known not childbirth

Nor the enfolding of life

Into one’s arms, one’s heart, one’s womb?

In righting wrongs,

Did my son, my own,

Die suffering?

Did he fear the end when it came?

Did he know my love

Would outlast the grave…

Was this just cause worth this blood sacrifice

Offered to the God of war…

That tears my heart always?

Ah, my son, brave man and true,

Willing soldier, mother’s pride,

Well fought against madmen gone berserk

Setting the world on fire again.

Sleep now, my son,

For the guns are now dreadfully silent

But still at ready for

Another mother’s son.

During World War I

During World War I

For Grandpa Earl McKinley Bradshaw

A limb for a limb, a trunk for a trunk,

Broken bodies under broken trees

Across a land of holes and shells…

And still the artillery fired,

Bombs igniting an inferno Dante never knew—

The nightmare that was.

More men died from tree fall than gunfire,

Branches of weapons old yet new

Still brought the same end.

Dead is dead regardless of how…

And the remaining few do live?

Foreign borne to soil blood knows new yet old;

Wash it now in sanguined mud,

The creosote of millennia burst aflame—

The hatred, the fear, and the passion…

Friends fought beside now gone…

A man deemed enemy wasted,

Human parts flayed bare are seen…

But not…

Can such deep wounds of land or breast

Ever heal again?

The Korean War

The Korean War

For John Lewis Bradshaw, My Father

That blue square with the white letters

When sited target makes

Upon helmet or upon uniform,

Coppery, salty red lakes.

It’s not our war, but we are there

To save a peninsula from Red Peril,

We carry the war, to our dismay,

Like fish caught in a barrel.

A human wave poured out upon

The Father against the Son…

Divide them up and let them have

Demilitarized zone, not won…

Then let our soldiers coming out

Find a Red Cross no friend…

Not only give blood to pay blood

But also their own coins they spend.

Monday, May 30, 2011

Unbelieved? Or Feared?

Unbelieved? Or Feared?

From each war healthy men and women

Return newly ill:

Sickness unknown,

Unbelieved

By VA, doctors,

Government.

Thousands after each war told

It’s all in your head;

IT does not exist:

What you said happened

Did not happen—

And that’s an order!

No, we would not drop Agent Orange,

Napalm, or any other weapon

On our men.

No, we would not bomb a known

Biological warfare storage center or lab

Upwind of our people.

No, we would not use our soldiers

Or our civilians

In large scale experiments on the sly.

And, no,

We will not believe you

When we are caught in our lie.

We will deny…

And try to discredit you.

Swim, Steel Fish

Swim, Steel Fish

For Joe Wiseman, a Cousin

Deep the steel fish swims

Sometimes in waters hostile

Where other steel fish also swim…

Deep, surface, afloat.

Any wrong move,

The Deep herself unmerciful…

At bottom too long,

Or rising too fast,

Or swimming not silent enough—

Fish gone.

Close quarters,

Some go mad—it’s too close,

Too tight;

To others,

A steel second skin

That bites.

Nothing prepares for that first dive…

The pops, creaking sighs

As the Deep presses into

Claim her fish…

And will continue to squeeze

And rock her baby

As Deep and exploding other fish

Meet…

Swim, steel fish,

Swim silently, deeply and fast…

May you not be hooked

Behind that hostile line

For no one will find you there.

Take the Hit

Take the Hit

For Mr. Long, Town Hero,

Uncle Bill Fortune, My Cousin Jimmy Delong

A soldier alone,

Sees the enemy,

Heading for camp…

A grenade…

One body a shield—

To be killed

Or perhaps worse

Maimed for life?

Either that

Or the whole camp

Killed.

Take the hit…

For the save.

Those Orange Poppies

Those Orange Poppies

I remember the old men standing in front of Kresges

Selling small paper poppies…

Small orange flowers on a wire

That we hooked onto ourselves with pride—

‘Though some hooked them on to show they’d paid their buck,

But me, with a mix bittersweet, mostly sad—

Were always the skies gray those days,

Threatening rain?

Or, was it my heart would burst

Seeing those men whose smiles…

Smiles that never quite hid

Deeply wounded,

Woefully sad eyes?

Flashback to Mekong: The War in Viet Nam

Flashback to Mekong: The War in Viet Nam

For Dustin Massie, Daniel Massie, David Massie,

Wayne Massie, and James Delong, My Cousins Who

All served willingly and honorably

And still the evil fought through lives

In minds and bodies all tattered

With memories of a limb or an ear

Or a child blown up and scattered.

Flashback to the now of the time when we hid

From the nightmare of still living

With a best friend’s right arm,

All that was left, of the life he was giving…

For a country who hated us…

In a country who hated us…

No reprieve.

Nineteen years old and proud of this land

Of our birth, our family, and teaching,

Many were drafted, so they couldn’t say no,

Regardless of the masses loud screeching.

War heroes, yeah right, stoned out of our minds

Blinding to terrors more real

Than any horror king knows,

And in our souls they live with us still…

For a country who hated us…

In a country who hated us…

No reprieve.

And Still the Channel to Cross

And Still the Channel to Cross

Looking around,

Nerves stretched taut,

The winds and waters churning.

All are pale.

None will return.

Deep terror in us burning.

Normandy,

Damn those cliffs,

A beach changed to bloody swampland…

Though thousands die

To win that beach

From Hell’s elitist command.

A Mother Cries for Her Fallen Son

A Mother Cries for Her Fallen Son

For Mrs. Goldcamp, Our Neighbor

Never will the guns be so silent

As the silence after death

Of those fallen to fight “the cause juste.”

Is a common life so shorn

Or youth so plentiful

To be offered up this way

By the wrathful God

Who has known not childbirth

Nor the enfolding of life

Into one’s arms, one’s heart, one’s womb?

In righting wrongs,

Did my son, my own,

Die suffering?

Did he fear the end when it came?

Did he know my love

Would outlast the grave…

Was this just cause worth this blood sacrifice

Offered to the God of war…

That tears my heart always?

Ah, my son, brave man and true,

Willing soldier, mother’s pride,

Well fought against madmen gone berserk

Setting the world on fire again.

Sleep now, my son,

For the guns are now dreadfully silent

But still at ready for

Another mother’s son.

During World War I

During World War I

For Grandpa Earl McKinley Bradshaw

A limb for a limb, a trunk for a trunk,

Broken bodies under broken trees

Across a land of holes and shells…

And still the artillery fired,

Bombs igniting an inferno Dante never knew—

The nightmare that was.

More men died from tree fall than gunfire,

Branches of weapons old yet new

Still brought the same end.

Dead is dead regardless of how…

And the remaining few do live?

Foreign borne to soil blood knows new yet old;

Wash it now in sanguined mud,

The creosote of millennia burst aflame—

The hatred, the fear, and the passion…

Friends fought beside now gone…

A man deemed enemy wasted,

Human parts flayed bare are seen…

But not…

Can such deep wounds of land or breast

Ever heal again?