Returned

Returned to normality this lotto conscript,

Fighter like an enemy against the Cong

Hookah dreams now becalm this cast-off

At twenty-three he enters into suburban bliss

His mind modern lithium for the wild man,

Subdued enough for him to hug his surface

And enter domestic rules and other similes.

 

A crazed canyon is dividing his synapsed soul

Cong dreams thrash him about his wet bed

His head rages full of schizophrenic talk

Of a spirit's killing, the loudest being his own

Was he so manly to escape the Vietnam bog?

Sent into sadness for other things done wrong

Now doing them mercilessly in his gorgon head

And thrashing about in his single bed.

 

Alone, without a wife who'd lost him hence

To his jungle demons and mental gyrations, 

Guns blazing inside his head's twisted head

Two skulls close enough to cause friction

As memory and counter memory do battle

Over what he had done or wasn't accused of

Over not remembering the massive truth;

 

He killed when barely shod of youth

And the zero protests of hairy beads

Merge with the zing of sniper fire

Rebirthing a baleful desire

To hunt for the heads of betrayer ghosts

Dwelling in caves walled by filth streaming

In bastions devoid of Monash’s touch

Those moments, the lullabies of fear

A drag of a smoke made frigid warm,

A mate felt the presence of his girl nearby

By hugging the curve of his rifle butt.

 

A shell had blown all memory apart

Death the foul, death the art

The smell of unwashed sweat

The urine-soaked giggle hat

The disavowals feverishly gnaw at him

Villainy so pure and evenly spread

Heroics stalled at the Phnom Penh gate

His sweating drowns him all too slowly

He’s scratching his uniform from his skin.