Going To San Francisco

     1969

All the way back to Dong Tam
I keep seeing this young Mamasan
with both of her feet blown off
and the bandages oozing with blood.
An old man is squatting beside her,
as we wait for Dong Tam dust–off.

We've spent several days in the field
where the only fortifications
are the ones we build in our mind.
Thank God that we have each other,
there's not much support from back home.

We linger here under the showers,
not that everything can be washed off,
still, the cold water feels refreshing
and at least there aren't any leeches.
I get dressed and put on my Peace symbol
and then we head off to our bunker,
the one that we call San Francisco.
Though it's too far to go in real miles,
for us it's just one joint away.
We crank up the radio station
and listen to Dylan and Creedence
and dream about life on the Bayou,
or at least out of Vietnam.
And then we hear the rumor,
I think it was started by Chunchick
who said he heard Jimi Hendrix
had been airborne and in Vietnam.
Hell, what can be stranger than that?

It is hard as hell to unwind,
I just sit here and stare at my hands,
there's still so much shit on my mind.
It doesn't matter how much you smoke.
It doesn't matter how much you might look,
there is still no peace in sight,
not even inside this bunker,
where the poster of Jefferson Airplane
looks groovy as hell on the wall,
but the stacked up M–16s
and Tom Burke's loaded Machine Gun
keep bringing it all back home.

I'm reading a copy of Ramparts
wondering how it got here in the war,
wishing someone would play the Beatles,
as the sirens announce "incoming"
and Frisco is gone in a flash.

Hope Is Good For Breakfast

"Hope is a good breakfast but a bad supper." —Francis Bacon

Hope is good for breakfast,
and even fine for lunch,
but when it comes to dinner time
we need some sustenance.

A cupful of forbearance
can go a long long way.
An order of real kindness
might even satisfy

the one who's always hungry
and often on their own,
who seldom has a place to rest
or a room to call a home.

So open up your heart
as if it were an Inn,
if only for a moment
where another can rest within.