In Memoriam

Here & there they lie, friends, or not, but gone.

I breathed their dusts, inhaled their mists,

     shared their heartbeats still pounding in etheric bursts.

     An incessant murmur is the constant drone

of my various memories of home  and foreign, so alone;

places my infancy had me, where "Soldier-boy" rests;

     where infants of Con Thien died at mothers' breasts

     (I was twenty there, unwilling, and I was not alone).

My soul escapes not: by rivets of lead still pinned-down.

My mouth still protests, but my voice -- too far it scatters!

     Hurting blows still fall; silently Viet Nam rages on.

      They'll NEVER learn! To the powerful, lives don't matter.



So the Demon-dust is lain,

too many tears to count, or cease;

and the Memorials are so much for War,

and too, too little for Peace!

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