The poems here and on the Links below are all in someway connected to ALL FREE COUNTRIES' Military, Veterans and their Families.
Please take time to read the poems posted here and also on the War Poetry Web Sites. Then please take time and sign the Guest Book. God Bless us all and God Bless our Military.
Sitting on the sandbags watching the war,
Wondering what on earth I volunteered for.
Hearing Larry's Guitar softly play,
Wondering just what I've accomplished today.
Riding in a cyclo down Tu Do Street,
Watching the ladies in Ao Dais, clean and neat.
Gliding by bar girls with sirens' eyes
Offering Siagon Tea and enticing thighs.
Smelling burnt flesh, a bitter stink
Seeing young-old eyes that never blink.
Listing to White as he pats his feet
Strumming his guitar while keeping the beat.
Hearing my voice signing soft and low
Shouting folks back home snarling, "I won't go!"
Sitting down on the end of my rack
Thinking 'bout the ones who won't come back.
Staring at the tracers, neon bright
Searching for a life to snuff tonight.
Crouching behind sandbags fighting the war
Knowing now exactly what I volunteered for:
Preserving the right of the people to be free
To spit on the Flag, this uniform, and me.
Copywrite 2001
Thurman P. Woodfork
A box of mementos stored away on a shelf;
Remnants and souvenirs of an earlier self
Conjure up memories of times gone by
Brought into focus by the mind’s eye…
Inanimate objects, yet possessed of a power
To evoke sweet memories of a lover’s flower
Still jeweled with drops from a gentle shower -
Or recall red blossoms from a deadly watchtower
In an isolated jungle camp in a long ago war
And flick the scab from an unhealed sore.
As with Pandora’s chest, one might come to find
That it’s best not to open some boxes in the mind.
©Thurman P. Woodfork
January 26, 2003
All Rights Reserved