cincibuck
You kids stay off my lawn!
Hidden Rituals
It's a hell of a party.
Lieutenants let off steam,
take risks with booze, cigarette dinky dau and army authority.
I leave early,
wander along an unfamiliar path,
listen to the sounds of the Vietnamese night:
a lone chopper circles overhead,
jeeps and trucks lumber and whine around the base,
bits of conversation float upon the evening air as I pass tents and buildings.
From a doorway comes the sound of running water and voices,
rock music rumbles in the background,
I peek inside:
two soldiers, naked to the waist,
wrestle with a garden hose and a body that dangles from stirrups in the ceiling.
It's the brigade morgue.
The shiny pink skin of the corpse is pierced by hundreds of tiny holes.
Water washes down the torso,
flows along the arms and head,
plunges in a crimson stream,
curls into the drain in the floor.
I step away,
shake my head,
breathe deep,
I wonder how these two young boys,
forced to wash the dead,
will blot the scene from their minds.
I imagine them,
years from now,
lost to booze and nightmares.
I wonder why I have been spared the war's dirty jobs.
What star of grace keeps me safe in this base camp?
My sleep comes in small snatches,
disrupted by vivid dreams:
scenes of combat,
of steel and explosives and soft tissue,
of kids tenderly washing the bodies of kids.
Forrest Brandt
aka Cincibuck
It's a hell of a party.
Lieutenants let off steam,
take risks with booze, cigarette dinky dau and army authority.
I leave early,
wander along an unfamiliar path,
listen to the sounds of the Vietnamese night:
a lone chopper circles overhead,
jeeps and trucks lumber and whine around the base,
bits of conversation float upon the evening air as I pass tents and buildings.
From a doorway comes the sound of running water and voices,
rock music rumbles in the background,
I peek inside:
two soldiers, naked to the waist,
wrestle with a garden hose and a body that dangles from stirrups in the ceiling.
It's the brigade morgue.
The shiny pink skin of the corpse is pierced by hundreds of tiny holes.
Water washes down the torso,
flows along the arms and head,
plunges in a crimson stream,
curls into the drain in the floor.
I step away,
shake my head,
breathe deep,
I wonder how these two young boys,
forced to wash the dead,
will blot the scene from their minds.
I imagine them,
years from now,
lost to booze and nightmares.
I wonder why I have been spared the war's dirty jobs.
What star of grace keeps me safe in this base camp?
My sleep comes in small snatches,
disrupted by vivid dreams:
scenes of combat,
of steel and explosives and soft tissue,
of kids tenderly washing the bodies of kids.
Forrest Brandt
aka Cincibuck