Vietnam Hangover

I got the news today
My V.A. claim denied.
Fuck you.
Just say you killed me
with Agent Orange,
Say you did It!

The rumor is true: We vets are
time bombs.
Cancer—hiding 50 years,
laying in ambush –
blew up in my body,

Just as Peace of Mind
called a cease fire
and my grand children
Stared from the end
of the hospital bed,
I almost… disappeared.
Just say you did It!

This shared legacy,
the Vietnamese and us
Stillbirth and deformity,
amputation and agony.
Here in our communal family plot
buried in a mass grave,
Yellow ghosts smile across the years,
Tombstones by Monsanto.

The Cong were in the bush
eating fish heads and rice
Seasoned with Agent Orange,
Buried skulls still grin
While our heart clock ticks
this time bomb,
booby trapped in DNA.

Just say you did It!
We still live,
yet—we died in Vietnam
Marching across
your poisoned moon scape.

Your black and grey, lifeless DMZ.
We aliens in camouflage space suits
breathed in your Bardo Plain of the demons
and the phantoms
we were to become.

My Soul dreams of WWI
shell blasted waste lands.
Gentlemen poets in a muddy inferno
Whispering of an endless cemetery,
trenches for graves,
Bones coated with mustard gas.

And in this time,
Future ghosts marching
in black and grey
tailored body bags
embark for the East
From West Point,
Eager sacrifices
Lining up,
All ready
Dead.

Brent Mac Kinnon began his writing career by journaling in Vietnam while living alone in the village of Nong Son, near Cambodia, in 1967. After two tours with the Peace Corps he returned to graduate school to teach writing.

More recently, he taught the art of memoir with incarcerated veterans for three years. Currently, he facilities a poetry group and mentors first time authors through the publishing process using Expressive Writing as a technique for writing- what cannot be said.