Memorial Day, 1998

They pass by him each day
their eyes turned,
avoiding his empty stare,
and the stench...the smell.

It's been thirty years
since he did the same.
Turned his eyes from the
empty stare of death,
the stench...the smell.

Twelve months--one short year
of turning his eyes
from that empty stare, silently
suffering the stench of napalm-dealt death.

Twelve months to kill the
bird of youth that nested within
a boyish heart. He volunteered,
his duty done to suffer this?

Now in this doorway he sleeps;
we pass by and avert our eyes,
as he still dreams
of the empty stares,
the stench ...the smell of death.

©William Davis1998--U.S.N. 1967-71