February 27, 2009

Dark Ghosts

Introduction: This post is a celebration of the Obama administration's announcement today of the finalized timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. Going to war in Iraq was deeply troubling for me and emotional in a very personal way, touching on feelings and memories born in Vietnam in 1968-69. I was stationed in the Central Highlands with the 1/52nd Infantry of the 198th Light Infantry Brigade, Americal Division. I arrived in-country on July 19th., 1968 and left on July 19th., 1969. I was as naive as any Goldwater booster in those days, although still a Democrat. I believed that the government had a well thought out game plan for Vietnam, mainly because of all the dazzling Harvard grads in the Kennedy State Department. It took personal exposure to burst the bubble. Once in-country, it did not take long to realize that the government had absolutely failed to understand the situation on the ground in Vietnam; if they had thousands of American and Vietnamese lives need not have been sacrificed.

What was particularly horrible about the ramp-up to Iraq, was that it could be seen from such a long way off, and yet felt inevitable. During Vietnam, self-education happened on the fly; the realization that our Vietnam policy was a mistake didn't dawn on most until we were actually in the soup - chin deep. The inevitability of the Iraq war could be seen emerging from its' dark neo-con lair, then onrushing like a nightmare train of death approaching from a far horizon.

Iraq became personal and cut to my heart the day that I heard from my brother-in-law that his son Colin had enlisted in the Army and was on his way to Tikrit. It is true of me that at moments of high personal emotion, I use a form of poetry to express my feelings. So it was when I realized that the Iraq fraud of BushCheney was to put the life of my nephew at risk. And at that time, Iraq was a true nightmare, likely to get worse. Indeed it did until finally even BushCheney realized change was needed. So this poem was written in the emotion of that time, and it seems appropriate to offer it as we reach the end of the Iraq period, in celebration of lives redeemed and in sorrow for lives lost. And a salute to my nephew Colin, who survived Iraq, has returned home to Bosie, Idaho and is training for a civilian career in treaching. So, for Colin and many like him...



Dark Ghosts


I.

I hear again the sounds
That I heard at the death of my youth.
Chopper blades overhead
Whack the air with human violence
The crack of small arms fire.

A grid marked on a map
In black crayon,
a military radio
calls death from the darkness.
the darkness returns
an affirmative.

The distant rumble of Rolling Thunder
Like earthquakes in another town.

Dark ghosts bank and turn in the sky
Ordinance falls in clusters
The land below a blanket
Of red and yellow flowers.

The great criminals
Feel the ground shudder underfoot.
The air a whirlwind of fire
Alive with the frightened spirits
Of the newly dead.

B-52s fleeing the scene,
Arrive home in time for drinks
At the officer’s club on Guam.

II.

The great criminals
Squat at the hearth of cookfires
Playing cards; two-handed Bhatt
Slapping the cards down one-by-one
As they wait for rice to cook.
Rusted weapons wrapped in oiled rags
buried in the fields.

Waiting for John Wayne
To explain again
How death comes for a higher purpose.

III.

I hear the sounds again
Though forty years have passed.
Warriors now fat and old
Load their children onto airplanes
Praising their courage
While priests absolve their shame.

Mothers at church
Praying on Sunday morning;
Loudly singing the hymns of ancient faith
To drown the memory
Of lullabies sung to their babies.

Young warriors now with red berets
Body armor; suits of high-tech Kevlar
Protect their hearts from tragedy
As they leap from the bellies of airplanes
To assault the great criminals below.

IV.

Have you not learned just one new trick
In forty years?
All those years of study?
All that college education?
And still the only song you know
Is sung to the sound of explosions?
The only trick you know
Is blowing holes through human hearts
With bits of metal?

All you know is waging war with children
While John Wayne explains
That death comes for a higher purpose.

V.

In the blue sky over the garden
Streaks of white
Evidence the passing
Of the great warbirds





300 generations
Separate the thunder of F-16s
From the angel’s flaming sword
When adam and eve
were banished from the garden.

Only the time is different.
The place is the same.
The tree of life stood then
Where the battle for Tikrit now rages.
VI.

The place of the Lord while on earth
Was in the garden.
His creation was at hand
Blooming and new
His children growing.
And when the time came
He returned to heaven
Leaving his children
In the hands of the angels.

And wobetide you!
Said the Lord
If you lead the children
In the path of death and danger.
. . .


DHL