INNOCENCE LOST
by Gary Jacobson © today in May 2015

I’m just a lonely soldier fighting in Vietnam.
Now a grizzled veteran fighting man
But when I came in-country
I was America’s golden boy, Zin loi…
Life surrounded by loving family in Elysian fields
Foisted into an ocean of storms hellmouth
Not ready for the life Nam yields
Embroiled in war of humanities drought
Gung-ho naïve
Vietnam much more than I could ever conceive
Yet filled with optimistic exuberance
I’m childishly unaware of Nam’s potence.

I lost youth’s bright light
I don’t know where
Somewhere In-country firefight
So into bleakest jungle I solemnly stare…
All innocence long lost
Abruptly in killing fields tossed
Looking for dusky men
Whose life mission’s to harm me
To bring me pain in monsoon rain
With fiery bullets punctuate me..
Out there in verdant disarray roaming
Dedicated to the precept of my dying…

Danger always hovering above my head
With skulking foul specter of death
Painfully of all forgiveness bled
Hanging above my every bated breath…
That wily VC knucklehead.
Who knows when the master of death will call
Whether this very minute life will amend
Whence cometh the shrouded pall
Maybe tonight the war will life rend
Maybe as I eat, will swarthy men
To Fiddler’s Green send
Maybe as I sleep will hell descend…

My brothers beside me sleep
With angels to keep
Around the next bend in the trail
Will sweet killing deliver me
Dead as a doornail
To end me
In this NVA infested lair
What moved behind that bush there
Quiet danger loiters in the tree-line
Oh this l’il camping trip sublime
Waiting in shadow to kill me…
From life to set me free…

All I did was fight wagering life to rid
Gone to war for the oppressed
To bring them sweet liberty…
To save a world from evil obsessed
For this, life holds striking memory
Now held close with terrors to bide
Cloistered way down deep inside…
Yet lined with great pride
Fallen brothers appearing in grim reminder
Forever meditating of a far off time
Escaping the grim reaper
Besting fated foes in combat’s rhyme.