...experience and reality...proud Vietnam Veteran
I Could Not Sleep...
walked along the deck
among whirring winches lifting ammunition pallets
high above the non-skid coated steel deck, cables paying
out the load to smaller ships...
destroyers, frigates, cruisers lined up alongside and behind
like cars lined up for gasoline
awaiting fuel and naval gunshells
preparing for the tet
soon to anchor bow and stern and arc their barrels
sending penetration fire over shallow seas and humid jungle
to map coordinates from coded messages from generals
who could not see...
torsos cut in half or missing
arms and legs and never heard the
screaming pidgen-english sobs offering
an obscene act to end the torture
of the grotesquesly twisted infant
in her arms never watched the
children burying their families
walking through rice paddies
in search of anti-personnel mines
to join them in their permanent
escape. As I walked back to the
steel coffin of my bunk, I knew
my nightmares would soon belong
to another, and could not help
remembering her grateful moans
in answer to a single bullet
or her thankful bows and words
when I refused her offer
later, when I laid down in
the darkness
waiting for exhaustion to collapse my mind...
I heard the guns...and could not sleep.
Frederick E. Smith, 1983
