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Closure |
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Tired of body and of mind sore
Sickened to heart's core by dreadful war
Soldiers of "the Nam" came home
No more in blistering jungles to roam
Needing
Healing
Closure
Of innocence stripped in divestiture
From Nam's liquidating exposure.
We remember Nam's cruel hating
Seeking from life
To purge memories embedding
Brought back traumatic horror imbibing
That nations, in their sons, invest,
That of men we are the very best
In a loving nation blessed.
Rising in sanctity above the wicked rest,
With power of might propagating,
Divine doctrine convincing,
Propagandizing.
Boys in Nam were forged into men
Made violent killers in war's angry din
Through war's gory cost,
Explosive to boys' who've innocence lost
Lost the ingenuous child
Naive once, meek and mild;
Lost for life
Forevermore to replay memories rife.
These boys once answered the call
At their countries behest
Once by the God of all blest.
Now a man
Fervently seeks peace in "the world,"
Heavy burdens still on his chest
Frightened by what they still behold:
Burdens that give no soul critical rest.
Ghostly apparitions come haunting.
Taunting.
Every night.
Grim reminders forever pain bringing
Blood curdling screams ringing.
Every night.
To wearied souls still hearing jeering;
Still warring �
Every night!
Nam's soldiers need blessed closure
To receive the welcome measure
Once to them denied
Valorous service decried
Honor stripped from inside
Forced back to that war souls can't abide
But veterans found hate here too
People hating war their soldiers eschew
As if the boys were the cause of war
Hear protesters chant they abhor.
An embarrassment to loved ones they adore.
To ease wearied minds
Lo many years have cried,
Forget loathsome government forces
That with disillusionment lied.
Forget those still haunting
Visions of brothers that died
Escape the war inside yet raging,
Hemorrhaging,
Still burning,
Still dying
From bloody battlefields tossed
In destruction's most bitter holocaust.
Still suffering.
Families diseased by Agent Orange
Human minds must vile memories repel
From war's dim hating rebel.
Throw off stifling angers
From that long ago hell.
Seek to rid the soul of guilt's defilement
Divine mortalities grim abasement.
After many years bereavement
Turn away those who say your service
Was no valuable achievement.
A surgical incision
Can't roust this beast of war out.
A simple decision
Embedded demons hue and shout can't rout.
For too deeply into the heart
Is contagion bored,
Too deeply
In a lifetime since that year lost,
To and fro tossed
Over a minds heavy seas of doubt
Guilt's primeval shout.
Immorality lies buried in the pit of the soul
Driven there beyond a man's control.
Oh, drive from me this awesome war beast,
Make inner hostilities, finitely cease.
Give us closure.
Help us find the way back,
From the evil usurper in our hearts pack
As men,
From the "inhumanity to man" attack.
Help the soldiers who once expected
To by a grateful nation be respected.
Soldiers must invoke a final courage
Reach out from a mind bearing witness
To cruel carnage.
Reach out from buttressed fortresses
To those still hiding assuage
Inside sandbagged bastions protecting,
Fostered by war's contentions preserving
Besieged sanity defending.
Planted deep in the pit,
A still youthful soul;
The only thing that'll still make us whole.
Only powerful love
Distilled from bowers above
Distilled from the heart of a grateful nation
Can restore some kind of compensation,
Drive shadowed forces from dimming past,
Into future with bright shining cast,
Instill glimmering peace in hearts to last.
We are sons of our nation's creation.
Do not cast us off with callous consternation,
Of embarrassed indignation.
In this clamorous world
Inherited confusions around us swirled
Now the world waits
To remove erstwhile harms,
My good brothers in arms.
Receive the welcome of good friends.
Friends, God in great wisdom sends.
For love alone breeds benign composure;
Overcome for the lost tranquil closure. |
By
Gary Jacobson
Copyright 2001
Listed
June 22, 2010 |
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About
Author...
In 1966-67, Gary Jacobson served with B Co
2nd/7th 1st Air Cavalry in Vietnam as a combat
infantryman and is the recipient of the Purple
Heart.
Gary, who resides in Idaho writes stories he
hopes are never forgotten, perhaps compelled by
a Vietnamese legend that says, "All poets are
full of silver threads that rise inside them as
the moon grows large." So Gary says he
writes because "It is that these silver
threads are words poking at me � I must let them
out. I must! I write for my brothers who cannot
bear to talk of what they've seen and to educate
those who haven't the foggiest idea about the
effect that the horrors of war have on
boys-next-door."
Visit Gary Jacobson's site for more information
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