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The Veil of War |
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Great iron birds beat o'er the veil of war horrors
O'er contentious fierce warrior actors
Above Devil's travailing twixt dusky marauders
Hear its battling echoes above sweet-and-sour air tromping
Hear death's rattle in helicopter's whomp whomp whomping
Murmuring agony songs sung of doom impending.
O give these clay feet of mine wings to fly
Far above the veil of war on high
Above tormenting rain falling from fervid sky
O'er righteous wrath of a thousand young doves
Warring hawks, from both sides, frail freedom shoves
Negotiation's done... take off the gloves.
Iron horses carry warriors o'er ancient trees dancing
To battle triumphant with droning wings chanting
Heaven's Cavalry through awful veil of war floating
Above red hued dawns forever lost
Wetting up courage, reckoned evil in a jungle to accost
War Knotting verdant scarlet in tempest tossed.
We're just infantrymen sent to patrol anguished jungle track
Through the tortured veil of war to hack
Humping rice paddy dikes of mud and blood to a foe attack
Primal screams borne in warrior throats will not cease
Cacophonous noise lodged tight in oppressive silence
Clutching fearsome death mid a sweat and toil cadence.
Saddle up those fear laden dreams of shadowy enemies
Waiting beyond the veil of war bearing death decrees
Dinky dau banshees building xin loi memories
Swarthy men dedicated America's offending beast to kill
Preoccupied with your dying, their fondest will
To bury patriotism's essence... to nourish with blood
ancient alien hill.
Warriors bear brave witness, waiting, courage steeling
From your ride to the war through the veil of war watching
See life's great mysteries unfolding
With festering fear awaiting the virulent hand of fate
Wondering while riding o'er this verdant land of hate
Why some men live, and some die, your soul saturate.
War asks questions without answer
Soaring through the veil of war the pot to stir
Spiritual meaning all a blur
Brave warriors fighting for good o'er vile evil
Contesting who will win the peasant's ville
Who will this day their freedom instill?
This day we'll fight with flesh and bone and sinew
Giving all the best that's in you
Coming through the veil of war to Vietnam
Sent to win hearts and minds of man
Or lie zapped in red marmalade pools of flotsam
Lifeless in corkscrew jungles of the Nam?
Take me with you on this intrepid journey
Through the veil of war to win the big money
Lead on to foreign lands brave with destiny
Past boundaries of time tempest tossed
Cross swords with brave tongues forever lost
Forget for awhile the mortal cost.
Brothers entomb in verdant cathedrals of gnarled forest
Laid low below the veil of war at a master's behest
Fears cradled behind shield and buckler of graven stone
Sent to harvest forests with wicked tares' o'ergrown
To plant seeds by raging tempests blown
To win the peace by warriors sown.
Lofty mountains rise before this veil of war eschewing
Evils borne in them awful guilt of my warrior doing
Memories put down on a hot LZ landing
M-16s on rock �n' roll exploding
Charlie di di mau running. Grenades belching
Panic invading mid flying shrapnel burning �n' blazing.
Who carries the body bags on the bloody trail
We'll need them, when beyond the veil of war we fail
Long nights filled with silence till the dead wail?
There, humping the booneys with a cherry too.
Twinks find fearful misery of body and mind
beaucoup
Listen! Listen, sweet innocence! They're coming for you.
Listen to veterans for the clear sound of truth
Red Legs beyond the veil of war sight deadly azimuth
Salvos trumpeting thund'rous guns forsooth
Driven like giant Buicks to fill tortured air uncouth
O'er Recon Rangers born in bloody sweet-and-sour wood
Death's ambrosia hovers o'er the grunt brotherhood.
Fight furious the bestial battle
Hear Jolly Green Giant mini-guns prattle
Spooky Cobras find mortals below the veil of war brittle
Incoming Slicks dart in from hell's sky on high
Puff the Magic Dragon blasting fiery pestilence
Targeting tree lines with saturated abhorrence
Wafting cordite with gunpowder's sweet fragrance.
O, I've Five days and a wake up till my war's over
Till I return to that sweet land of milk and clover...
Finally carry home this valiant warrior
Far beyond where I with the Cong rail
Leaving in my six my slain brothers cloudy pale
To forever honor brothers passed to Valhalla's veil.
Back in the world waits Mother America
Where nobody understands but warriors, of war's esoterica
She waits there, she who cast her sons o'er heartbreak
sea...
Wonder what she'll think of me...
Who offered my very life for liberty?
I rode life's rim to the point of death, for this country
With brave men who fought for freedom for you and me! |
By
Gary Jacobson
Copyright 2009
Listed
November 15, 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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