Anthony Tripi, 'Old War Poem for Our Time'

[duathir.livejournal.com]

Old War Poem for Our Time

Tu Fu made his way through fields of bones,
weeds pushing through the mud of bodies,
soldiers rotting where they fell, shrill of hawks,
wild cats, rats running the trampled earth.
Near dawn in rain sounds the quiet grieving of old ghosts.
No one has come to get their bones.
In Vietnam we bundled the dead in their own ponchos,
lugged bodies out of the field, threw away boots,
junked fatigues, scrubbed off
the tattoos of war, sprayed and medaled
the wasted, washed their feet, got rid of the rot,
quick shit and a shave, fast trim, packed them
in aluminum frozen in rank and shipped out
for the whiplash of flags, ceremonial words
spitshining the gash in his flesh, the gash in your heart,
years of a life bunched in a body bag,
flag draped stumps bugled into the ground,
no reason to moan like Tu Fu's dead
whose bones under the clash of wind and rain
cracked to dust until at last ghost sounds
quieted.

by Anthony Tripi