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Back to AZURE (September/October 2015)

New Age Uncaged

By Frank Light
Picture

New Age Uncaged
           
Nha Trang, 1968. Documents, intercepts, interrogations, informants, and agents could have given us a heads-up – had we not imagined we were them.
 
Buddha beckons
Charlie reckons
Old man’s blind
Dumb, numb, deaf to the times
Defrocked, destocked
In hock, counterclock
Blocked, locked, propped in the backseat
Cast into concrete
Smooth as stone
Bright as bone
Going gone
Childhood songs
Right the wrongs
Tell the tale
Cell by cell
Incubated
 Mutated
  Pullulating
   Pulsating
    Propagating
     Populating
      Infiltrating
       Insinuating
        Indoctrinating
         Agitating
          Aching heads
           Breaking threads
            Red spreads
Dread
Tumors and cysts
Tracks and trysts
Rumors of lists
Absence unmissed
License to resist
Rise with the mists and the tide
Ride with the wind and glide
On verbal convection
Fervent conviction
Unerring direction
Convex inflection
Sham elections
Not interested
Already divested
Outposts invested
Districts contested
Logistics tested
Contacts arrested
Context suggested
Comments requested
    Less said the better
Follow the letter
In it together
No matter the weather
The quitters, the fretters
The starts and stops
The cart the ox
The cash the crops
The watch tocks
Keys, locks
Docks, ducks
Trains, trucks
Flow, flux
Rickshaws, cyclos, motorbikes
Canals, back channels, and dikes
Rivers west to east
Embargoes released
Prepare the feast
Ensnare the beast
Beware pretenders
Return to sender
Conspicuous contenders
Token defenders
Repeat offenders
Vendors, lenders
Solicitous mentors
Religious dissenters
Fringes to center
The mad monkey enters
What was lost will be won
The done undone
The country as one
By one
Word of mouth
Moves north to south
Mountain to sea
Paddy to city
People’s committees
Comrades and cadres
Give it up gladly
All for the Party
The Party for all
Clarion call
For martyrs and heroes
Thousand arrows
Plows and harrows
Owls and sparrows
Now’s the hour
Power’s ours for the taking
Generations in the making
On the brink
Pry the chink
Lose the link
Break the chain
Embrace the pain
No need to explain
Tactical mendacity
Unwavering tenacity
Always audacity
Increasing capacity
Operational opacity
Not yet achieved
But message received
In the nets we weave
Deaths we grieve
Homes we leave
As temporary as new year’s eve
As necessary as the air we breathe
As evolutionary leads to revolutionary deeds
Playing to strengths
Going to great lengths
To please, to tease
Appear to appease
Call for peace
A ceasefire at least
A truce for dupes
With judicious use
Of classic ruses, flimsy excuses
Averted eyes, plaintive cries
Lullabies, butterflies
Little white lies and alibis
Spies in the guise of witting stooges
Subterfuges
Gimmicks, doozies
Pimps and floozies
Onesies, twosies
Short and long fuses
Fireworks firecrackers
Quick reacters, residual attackers
Bad actors before and after
Distant distracters
Beneficent backers
Irrational front
Political stunts
Both blunt and coy
Be it background noise
Or jukes or ploys
Flukes, toys
Convoluted convoys
Decorative decoys
Eloquent envoys
Showing how to kowtow to
An age-old sage
Slow to leave the stage
Damn with faint praise
Merely a phase
None of it stays
Uncle Ho says
Engage the factions
Convey reactions
Allay dissatisfactions
Dazzle the frazzled
Hassle the hustlers
Muzzle the mumblers
Muffle the grumblers
Jugglers bunglers
Puppet bundlers
Buffoon bumblers
Staggering stumblers
Rolling Thunderers
Plunderers blunderers
Thorns thistles
Whistles missiles
Sudden flashes
Marauder crashes
Haul the ashes
Open the caches
Swap out the stashes
Unmask the masses
Smash the fascists
Oust the capitalists
Thieving upper classes
Onward, nationalists
You’re the catalysts
Crystallize galvanize energize
Demonize harmonize
Synchronize finalize
Organize mobilize
Workers unite
Arise
Exercise your rights
Starting tonight
The general offensive
Intensive, extensive,
Commences
So concentrate, focus
Float like the lotus, unnoticed
Slip like the fog
Eel in a bog
Ant off a log
Tick on a dog
A slog up to and down from the Highlands
Self-reliance
In compliance
With socialist science
Mute defiance
To toothless tyrants
Those helpless giants
Disavow violence
Howl in silence
Prowl
 
Across the divide
The other side
Has nowhere to hide
The decay and dismay
Complete disarray on full display
The schisms the chasms
Has-beens’ spasms
Passing passions
Ersatz enthusiasms
Foreign fashions
Hired assassins
Murderous massacres
Teargas cannisters
Opium traffickers
Casino gangsters
Racketeers and financiers with colonial masters
Privateers, sloganeers, sinecures, manicures
Mandarin aunts who summer in France
Meandering rants, charlatan chants, harlequin cants
Pleas for patience, fees for all occasions
Visa arrangers, money-changers
Rising prices, crisis after crisis
Oh, the bankruptcy of the bourgeoisie
Corrupt ministries, monks into effigies
Laborers to refugees
The height of hypocrisy
Such a legacy
Ladies bawling
Lackies lolling
Elites dissolving
Priests absolving
Negotiators stalling
Parasites crawling
Gulping gasping
Gripping grasping
Clutching clasping
Clawing hands
Desperate demands
Downward trends
Soaring debt
Losing bets
Crippled vets
Fixed address
Anybody’s guess
Associated press
Anonymous threats
Unmanned desks
Parisian baguettes
American cigarettes
Drinks at the Rex
Massage-parlor sex
Everything to excess
Headed for the exits
Too late
Out of shape
No escape
Traitors rolled
Collaborators culled
Truth told
Justice doled
The world’s a scold
Our position holds
 
Bubble up
Trickle down
Double up
Troubled town
Light the incense
One last instance
Let it smolder
Over your shoulder
One year older
Bolder
Colder
Muscles twitch
Scratch the itch
Into the ditch
Over the wall
House call
Window peek
Seek, sneak
Hinges squeak
Floorboards creak
Songbirds cheep
Tigers leap
The meek the weak
Too scared to speak
Will thank you later
Liberator
Reunificator
 
Punji stakes
    Three-step snakes
        Poisoned lakes
                Whatever it takes
              We all make mistakes
            Like criminals and lawmen
            We have that in common
            Collectively straw men
            Circumstantially bonded
            Separately commanded
            Banded, branded
            Recently landed
            And on our own
            Without a phone 
            In the dark
            Off the mark
            Choices stark
            With Pentagon
            Fixed on
            Khe Sanh
            Saigon
            Bygone icons
            Dien Bien Phu
            Madame Nhu, her barbecue
Ngo Dinh Diem, dead by coup
Nguyen Van Thieu as if on cue
Déjà vu
            Under review
Muddle through
Damned if you do demilitarized zones
And porous borders
            Fragmented orders
            Straight from headquarters
Dispatched, crosshatched, mismatched
Headgear and shoulder patches, clandestine clashes, heat rashes
Small beer, stalled careers, intrigues, jungle fatigues, combat fatigue
Zigzag, jet lag, draped flags, taped dog tags
Body bags and counts
            In massive amounts
            Search and destroy
            To deter Hanoi
            Lurch into Laos
            Looking for payoffs
            Patterns in chaos
            Pnomh Penh
            Wrong end
            Of the trail
            Ancillary, capillary, adjusted to scale
Steadfast effort
Refreshed fretwork
Best guess network
A maze in the haze
            Of untamed spaces
            Unrun races
Savage graces, covered faces
            Chilly nights coolie days
            Silly fights corraling strays
            Tricks and traps
            Credibility gaps
            General Giap
            Off the map
            While tunnels
                                    funnel
                                                human runnels
underground
            Out of sight, out of sound
            Out of line, out of sync
            Out of instinct, time to rethink
            Rejigger, reconfigure
            From every perspective
            Reflective retrospectives
            Effective correctives
            Selective objectives
            Protective collectives
            Proactive directives
Advise, resupply
            Admonish, comply
            Attach and apply
            Think-tank methodologies
            Technology without apologies
            Military eschatology
            The anti-astrology
            Of algebraic algorithms
            Mixed-market materialism
            Acronymal hymnals
            Constitutional dilemmas
            And institutional whims are
Whipped into exigencies
Indifferent to casualties
In deference to contingencies
Counterinsurgency
            Now a growth industry
            New sense of urgency
            Banking hopes
            On starlight scopes
            Camouflage, Cabot Lodge, and espionage
            Sabotaging the cabotage
            Agitprop, caps for cops, pallet drops
            Sources in shops, schools of hard knocks
            Patrons, partners, tree-top choppers
Couriers and carriers, sky-high fliers
            Sellers, buyers, fields of fire
            Concertina wire in horizontal spires
            Bomblets, leaflets, bombastic pamphlets
            Amulets, Ann-Margret and assorted starlets,
Shields, swords, punishment and rewards
Pacification and CORDS
            The Geneva Accords
Furloughs, Dak To, ratios on Rostow’s say-so
Westmoreland and McNamara
            The whole panorama
Abracadabra a propaganda extravaganza
Mamasans and papasans in black pajamas
            Marvin the Arvin tested for stamina
            Telltale signs
Between the lines
Could be by design
Small arms and mines 
            And mine detectors
            Plainclothes inspectors
            Sensors, defectors 
            Censors, mentors
            Landlords, renters
            Rallies, tallies, targeted valleys
            Agent Orange
            Where foresters forage
            And guerrillas pillage
            Village to village
            Hamlet to haystack
            With promises to pay back
            Scorning those who stay back
            In hidey holes behind the buffalos
            And of course us with our memos demos dominoes
            Ambiguous vows
            Drawn-out vowels
            Grunts and growls
            Mildewed towels
            Irritated bowels
            Rome plows
            Visored brows
            Squints and stares
            Guys in chairs
Splitting hairs
            Blissfully unawares
            Of weed in the reeds
            Asses in the grasses
            Loonies in the boonies
            Marines in their teens
Troopers toting bloopers
            Green Berets every which way
            Ricocheting across the passageways
            Bracing for monsoons, typhoons, profiteering tycoons
            Platoons re-repairing pontoon bridges
            Squads on watch from rocky ridges
            Glitches, stenches, monkey wrenches
            Terms and trenches
            Berms and fences
            Grilles and grates
            Towers, gates
            Perforated plates
            Pylons, pythons, indigenous payrolls, artesenal arsenals
            Hand signals, foot patrols
            Remote controls, opinion polls
            Risk adverse
            Tense and terse
            Don’t make it worse
            Power of the purse
            When accidents happen
            Ask the captain
            For solatium
            Small consolation
            Call it a donation
            De-escalation
            Trends and correlations
            Extraneous extrapolations
            Become predictive
            Almost addictive
            When you factor in tractors
            Hectares and vectors
            Societal sectors
Ballistics, mystics
            Updated statistics
            Noted characteristics
            Procedural mechanisms
For optimistic pessimism
            And vice-versa
            Bureaucratic inertia
            Putative realists
            Straight off the B list
            Projecting confidence
            Invoking providence
            Maneuvering for prominence
            While aerial surveillance
            Corroborates the evidence
            All the elements
            Of aggregate intelligence
            And not a clue
            How is it, sir
            Howitzers rumble
            While we slumber
            Aiming at nothing
            Scrapping, scuffing
            Feinting, bluffing
            Atonal accent
            On harassment
            Intermittent interdiction
            Attenuated attrition
            Undivided attention
Bystanders gawk
As snipers stalk
            A random walk
            Shoulders hunching
            Soldiers bunching
            Numbers crunching
            Add it, audit
            You touch it, you bought it
 
Mission creep
            Slippery steep
In it for keeps
With raids and sweeps
And rogue regimes
Roaming restless dreams
The less it seems
Sips and seaps
            Lips and leaks
            Tics and tweaks
Coos and peeps
            Did something beep?
            Who was it parked the jeep?
            No sir yes sir
            What’s the answer
            Begs the question
            What’s the lesson
            Whose aggression
            True confession
            Suppressed progression
            Compressed repression
Contrived expression
De liber oppression
            Our obsessions
            Cross lines of succession
            Cosine regression
            At off-site sessions
            Per persnickety perfectionists
            And antipodal antagonists
            Overloaded with loyalists
            Neutered neutralists
            Allies at the PX
            Peasants in native dress
            Potentates in residence
            Posturing as penitents
            Professing innocence
            Listening for resonance
            As long-range reconnaissance
            Disappears into new frontiers
            Muck, mud, leeches, overreaches, and moans
            Veers into crud, thuds, duds, Doors, and Stones
            Karma postponed
            Trade-off understood
            Would that you could
            Bad with the good
            Baby with bath
            Do the math
            Subtract divide
            Take it in stride
            Steal inside the marsh and eddies
            Step around the Bouncing Betties
            Steady, Eddie
            Going hot
            Ready or not
            Anticipate
            Save the date
            We can’t
                wait –
                        Break break
                        quick quake quaver quiver
                        s-sh-sch-shimmy shiver
                        smack
                                    slap
                                    crack!
snap back backtrack blowback rollback oh crap
wake up
                        scrunch up
                        sit up jump up
                        what the
                        shut the
                        but the
                        black to white
                        kill the light
                        fleeting seconds
                        lasting impressions
                        detonations deafen
                        grab your weapons
                        sirens wailing
sergeants yelling
incoming shelling
                        heart a-pounding
                        blood a-rushing
                        fussing, cussing
                        bare feet scuffling
                        fatigues rustling
                        boots, no socks
                        dude in flipflops
                        misfit steel pot
practically hip-hops
                        crossing sand
                        as flares swing
                        over no-man’s land
                        on parachute wings
                        they chirp they sing
                        above the swamp
                        mortars thump
                        artillery whomps
                        machine guns belting
                        barrels near melting
                        preposterous phosphorus
                        incandescent effervescence
                        evanescent luminescence
                        inferred inferno
tempestuous tempo
ear-ringing crescendo
louder by the minute
                        gunpowder, propellant, and insect repellant
                        prick the nostrils
                        hark the hostiles
                        rat a tat
                        crisp clap crackle
                        battle rattle
                        stereo static
                        semi-automatic
                        no antics, no panic
                        more manic than frantic
                        if you see ‘em have at it
                       
                        nothing to see
                        except scenery
                        soupy greenery
                        the usual humidity
                        paths and paddies from memory
                        malarial estuaries 
febrile dysenteries
actuarial obituaries
                        matériel sanctuaries
mercurial mercenaries
                        expeditionary adversaries
defaulting to others
                        to fill in the colors
                        imagine – no, don’t
                        unless you know what you want
                        best to buckle up
                        knuckle down
                        spelunker in the bunker
                        hunker in the clunker
                        it’s a stumper
                        mother humper
                        bump in the road
lump in the node
momentum slowed
                        pendulum pushed
                        from out of the bush
                        in God we trust
                        hush, it’s been discussed
adjust
no rush
                        breathe, seethe, air pet peeves if you must
                        flex, stretch, etch and kvetch
                        fiddle diddle doodle dawdle
ho hum twiddle your thumbs
pretend your helmet’s a drum
chew gum
                        dip snus
                        hang loose
                        tap a beat
stomp your feet
                        until it hurts
                        whatever works
                        clerks and jerks
                        a little too perky
                        outlook murky
 
                        it began, like so much, with a surprise
                        where the airfield lies
                        just out of reach
                        between town and base, road and beach
                        a momentary lapse
                        midst the shanties and shacks
                        Charlie jumped the gun
                        sentries overcome
                        perimeter breeched
                        outside in, inside out
                        seeds of doubt
                        speed of thought
                        brought to a halt
                        ought to’ve been caught
                        situation fraught
                        nappers sappers
                        satchels shrapnel
                        sandbags sumps
                        ammo dumps
                        ruptured pumps
                        punctured rumps
                        flickering shadows shuddering shades
                        rocket-propelled and hand grenades              
                        planes in flames
                        hangars scorched
                        trucks torched
                        fuel burning
                        tables turning
                        soundtrack staccato and strobic
                        incommunicado and heroic
                        pilots scrambling                    
                        through the gunplay
                        propellers churning
                        down the runway
up and away, out of the fray
                        over the strand, above the bay
aviators with attitude
attaining altitude limited latitude
orders of magnitude
                        ratcheting orbits
                        formerly dormant ornery hornets
                        taunting torments, Damoclean ornaments
                        haunting performance, significance enormous
one peels, wheels
                        falls like a nut from a coconut tree, gravity
                        to grave
                        so brave
                        cut short
                        abort! abort!
                        pulls up, a helium balloon
                        we have Buddha instead of the moon
 
silhouette
pirouettes
Skyraider descends like a hand stroking a pet
                        cannon the pop-pop of a balloon against bicycle spokes
                        spits spurts spatters
                        clatters clutters
                        engine stutters
                        throttles, strains
regains thrust, skeeballs up
                        spirals down
                        revisits resounds
                        bursts
                        roars
                        more, more
                        rains it pours
                        whirl curl snarls unfurls like at a German locomotive
                        on "Twentieth Century,” a TV documentary
                        swoops through the years
                        loops to the ears
                        rekindles old fears
                        aren’t we all volunteers
                        sons of guns of pioneers
indexed to our gazetteers
inadvertent souvenirs
                        whoom kaboom
                        tattoo of doom
                        iron broom
                        scours the room
                        and the glands vibrate like tuning forks
                        and the teacher tells about Mussolini's son-in-law saying
                        it was beautiful like a flower blooming
                        it’s not history it’s happening
                        maddening, addling
straddling layers on layers
                        baffling players and prayers
prospective purveyors
                        underminers overstayers
unofficially unconventional
incrementally multidimensional
centrifugally centripetal
encircling the citadel
certainly know it well
country cleft
                        who’s left wins it
                        spins it
           
                        downtown out of bounds
                        outgunned, out of rounds
                        checkpoints checkmated
                        intimidated if not eliminated
                        rough toughs had enough
                        Phantoms off
                        what the f four
                        casting for
a living-room war
                        Puff fills the void
                        redoubts destroyed
                        forces deployed
                        costs ignored
                        losses endured
                        bosses assured
                        public implored
                        critics deplored
                        cut the cord
                        the hidden unbidden
                        now does once didn’t
 
pause
                        air like gauze 
                        musty, dusty, smells of straw
`                       that awe that gnaws
hems and haws
                        oohs and aahs
                        for all their flaws
                        dudes had balls
                        died for the cause
                        true and false
bent to the yoke
went for broke
                        in one fell stroke
                        broken
                        and unspoken for
                        not our cohort
                        anymore
 
                        thunderstruck
                        so abrupt
                        ponder what
                        came unstuck
                        just our luck
                        nothing to duck
                        or shoot
                        or scooch or scoot
                        or even salute
                        loosen the boots
                        wiggle the toes hold the nose
GI joes flicking Zippos
passing smokes
rehashing stale jokes 
                        cramped and chafed
                        rifles on safe
                        pins in place
                        chicken-wire interface
                        while Skyraiders strafe
                        and tracers lace
                        filigreed asymmetry
an epiphany debased
empathy displaced
                        disbelief distended
                        belief untended
                        no harm unintended
                        carry on
                        stifle a yawn
                        so label us pawns
                        implicit, complicit
                        illicit, insipid
                        it’s only a visit
                        soon to be gone
                        one day we’ll miss it
                        and we won’t be alone
                        the clarity, the stakes
                        posterity awaits
how the heart aches
                        the night breaks in pieces
                        light fills the creases
dawn
 
                        the commotion concealed
                        what sunup reveals –
kicked-out, ripped-up, stripped-down urban jungle
utilities jumbled
                        vehicles crumpled
street signs mangled
banners tangled
                        columns angled
villas in shambles
guerrillas pummeled
                        compounds crumbled
                        architectural mumbo-jumbo
                        art deco geckos
                        stuck on stucco
                        splintered blistered
wrecked racked
                        blackened ruined
                        fractured strewn
                        hacked and hewn
dadaist palms
                        unexpressed qualms
                        queasy calm in the gut
somewhere short of throwing up
images tarnished, car parts and carnage
rats rummaging through the garbage
smoke plumes
                        probes resume
                        who to whom
                        and whom to who
                        high on fumes
                        scent of metal more than mental
                        pungent piquant all too frequent
                        vaguely medicinal up close and visceral
                        field-force offices and hospital
provincial capital
one vulcanized sandal
and a once-pink parasol
lie aside the sidewalk
Coca-Cola logo
seagull on a flagpole
cathedral on a low knoll
no, no bells toll
we’re in a lull
what’s the latest?
do they hate us?
did they bait us?
train station on hiatus
Buddha on pedestal   
                        unblinking, unthinking, unthinkable
                        swastikas on slopes
                        dragons on ropes
down to the pagoda
                        its posse comitatus
over quota  
no-go the status quo
uh-oh, tiptoes
                        footfalls
                        pitfalls
                        pratfalls
                        catcalls
bats mauled
walls spalled
thatch charred
glass shards brickbats
                        tic tac bric-a-brac
                        this and that
                        tit for tat
                        tet
 
hair wet as worms
maggots squirm
into a Rorschach inkblot
stinkpot pre-rot
if seen
                        you’re shot
                        if shot
                        you’re not
                        thus low and flat
                        is where it’s at
                        save Buddha on the hill
                        still as in ever
                        as in water
                        as in born
                        unadorned, shorn
                        torn
                        borne
                        reborn
 
                        past in surfeit
present perfect
future splendid
                        open-ended
                        and on the run
up to a point
                        which is the point
                        you go beyond
 
                        ain’t over yet
                        too soon for regrets
get out the gazette
                        revise the goals
                        devise a story
                        plug the holes
strut the glory
                        allegory salves the stings
                        though half the things
                        worth mentioning
                        aren’t functioning
                        and underlings are wondering
                        is anybody governing 
                        and who the hell is covering
                        when the hueys aren’t hovering
                        government is only human and machines
                        money and schemes
                        lone wolves, disparate teams
                        raised expectations, revamped regulations, rules
                        deputized fools, management tools
                        assumed authorities
                        bemused majorities
                        abused minorities
                        shifting priorities
                        ironies            

            With the American and South Vietnamese infantry committed to Saigon and those places where the North Vietnamese committed theirs, the battle for Nha Trang became one of small, often improvised, units. It played out slowly, block by block. Sensing need as well as opportunity, accounting specialist “Win” Winogrond of Watertown, Wisconsin, stowed away in the medics’ three-quarter-ton truck headed for town and there joined American-led irregulars moving on a machine-gun position believed to be in a bungalow at the end of a street. A Vietnamese man with a rifle stepped out from rubble to the side of the bungalow. Friend or foe? He shot Win in the midsection. An American lieutenant ran over, provided cover, checked the wound, radioed for a medevac. On hands and knees, blood dripping onto his carbine and the dirt around it, Win couldn’t stop laughing in the realization his life would never be the same; consciousness had made him a survivor. The truck he came in on rushed him to the hospital. After that, military police inspected every vehicle that left the base. You needed a reason.
 
Eyes blink mechanically
            And shut with a click
            Project onto a screen
                        snow fluttering after dinner
                        each flake part of something bigger, dimmer
                        reminders to remember
remove finger from trigger
                        round from chamber
                        red to amber
                        sitrep typed
                        optics hyped
                        glasses wiped
                        arms stacked
                        midnight snack
                        hamburgers in the officers' mess
                        under a street lamp reading step-by-step directions for the
                        assembly and utilization of the light anti-tank weapon
                        making friends
                        and enemies
                        amends
                        means to ends
                        matriculation speaker saying
                        "Introduce yourself to the persons on your left and right.
                        One of you three won't be here for graduation."
 
The third consecutive sleepless night
The lids lift on resolution's ropes and habit's pulleys
                        Buddha alight
                        in line of sight
                        positioned right to report
                        from the seaside resort
                        the perfect retort
                        to skewed perceptions
                        misconceptions
                        self-deception sporadic reception
                        insurrection and uprisings
                        sound enticing
                        from over the horizon
                        where activist strategists
                        envision the pageantry
                        diplomatic pleasantries
                        fodder for fantasies
                        common man their currency
                        forget the families
                        and the economy
                        take the embassy
                        and Hue overrun
                        one nation stunned
                        another in tatters
                        civilians scattered
                        Charlie battered
                        the spell is shattered
                        Nha Trang lost in the clatter
                        let talking heads natter
                        it’s Walter Cronkite that matters
                        and instigators, investigators, commentators, advocators
                        provocateurs, raconteurs, up-and-coming cinematic auteurs
middle-age yogis, older fogeys bagging groceries, inauspicious Hare Krishnas, assembled Quakers, movers and shakers, policy makers
senators, janitors, mid-level managers
                        anglers, wranglers, stars-and-spanglers
                        meddlers, levelers, prescription peddlers
                        monitors, chroniclers, popular barometers
                        panelists, fatalists, amateur analysts
                        professional pugilists, prognosticating futurists
                        teachers, preachers, putative impeachers, motivational speakers
                        peaceniks, beatniks, draft resisters, half sisters
                        younger brothers, gold star mothers, founding fathers
                        next of kin, best of friends, he or she without sin
                        mustered ancestors, flustered fact checkers, wild guessers, thesis testers
                        profound professors, principled protesters, conscientious objectors
                        4-F for the duration, the occupationally or educationally deferred
                        politically conferred, Guard and Reserves
                        silent majority ready to party           
                        hard hats in hand strike up the band
                        hawks and doves
                        who do you love
                        none of the above
                        each to his station
                        prone to exaggeration
righteous indignation
retaliation recrimination
disintegration of the nation
international dissemination
                        external damnation
imperial divination
                        communist penetration
                        all indications
                        too much information
                        it’s causation frustration
vocation location 
where to begin how to end
when it’s Buddha, Buddha again
 
The bullet grazed Winogrond’s liver on the way in and his spine on the way out. Million-dollar wound, he cracked before his flight to Japan. Despite other options this draftee, with a BA in philosophy from Madison and an MBA from Stanford, will insist on returning.
 
near-sighted misguided
                        not easily righted
                        far-sighted correctible
                        if detectable early
before the hurly-burly
                        finds the middle surrounded, confounded
                        blindsided, derided, incited, invited 
                        by barkers at the carnival
                        pandering to the faithful
                        hankering for the fanciful
                        suckers at the tidal pool
                        dumpsters at the landfill
                        hammer and the anvil
                        amateurs by the basketful
                        missionary and the cannibals
                        moral is big eats little
                        fast takes slow
                        boy gets girl
                        smart must know
 
The sheep was last year, out to pasture
Buddha witness
Inauspicious monkey business
Victor Charlie on an isthmus
Listless, witless, swims with fishes
Strung along and stranded
All but abandoned
Out of the loop
No chance to regroup
Groups being divisible
Down to the individual
With essence inalienable
Their presence replaceable
Each interchangeable
In one sense not another
Their ranks expand
Please understand
They’re neither numbers nor names
They’re men,
Women, and children.
Or they were.
A sea breeze blows
As boys known
Back home
Doze off
Too deep
To hear the rooster crow

Not until some 45 years later will VA doctors have to redo the mesh in Winogrond’s abdomen. In the meantime he’ll marry, help raise five kids, three of them adopted, divorce, remarry, become a widower, spend most of his life abroad, and settle, at last, in Clarksdale, Mississippi, birthplace of the blues.
 
Precision and rhythm lift us from the isms
Waft us through a prism
Where refraction redacts visions
Into exercises in diction
The diction a fiction
A proxy at best
Standardized test
The depiction an intervention
Invention a convention
Comprehension on the cheap
Redemption a leap of faith
Should you leave it to fate
Or the stars align
Seek and ye shall find
Nearly everything rhymes
What was one of a kind
Is all in the mind
The spirit entwines
The body unwinds
Until it’s over
It’s almost over
 
Released by the infinite, leashed to the finite,
Adrift in the twilight
Sleep a stray
Lives day to day
Give it something to chew on
To go on
A bone of contention
Mother of invention
Best of intentions
Ebb and flow
How it vexes
The man from Texas
Next to go
Brand new nexus
Death and taxes
Wounds and welts
Yips and yelps
Coonskin pelts
Nothing helps
Lose the news
You lose
Buddha rolls
                                                                     In memory of H.R. Winogrond
                                                                                      1942-2014
 
 
Frank Light first drafted this in 1968. The death of his friend Winogrond 46 years later prompted a fresh look, leading to extensive revisions. Now retired from government service, Frank has had his nonfiction appear in a number of literary journals, most of it adapted from an unpublished memoir titled Adjust to Dust: On The Backroads of Southern Afghanistan. His poems have appeared only in The Review, O-Dark-Thirty, and NOVA Bard. Well, years ago a haiku co-written with his wife Sally appeared in the Honolulu Advertiser.

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        • SUSURROS DE RECURRENCIA by Franco Strong
        • THE OLD MAN by Sarah T.
        • PERMUTATIONS by Laura Cesarco Eglin
        • WORLD PEACE 3 by Gustavo Alberto Garcia Vaca
      • AZURE Volume 1, Issue 9 >
        • LITTLE GHOST by Danny Judge
        • THE LAST ALLUSIONIST by Sakina B. Fakhri
        • CHURCH by Diana McClure
      • AZURE Volume 1, Issue 8 >
        • DEVIL IN A BLUE DRESS by Nancy Flynn
        • WHAT I COULDN'T SAY by Erika Ranee & Diana McClure
      • AZURE Volume 1, Issue 7 >
        • BRASS TYRANT AND THE AMERICAN THIRST by Kirk Marshall
        • LADY KILLER by Monika Viola
        • THE RIBBONS by Ferguson Williams
      • AZURE Volume 1, Issue 6 >
        • AURELIA: A BALLET IN PROSE (ACT 2 - Part 1) by Sakina B. Fakhri
        • NEW AGE UNCAGED by Frank Light
        • IMMIGRATION/INTEGRATION by Jaret Vadera & Diana McClure
      • AZURE Volume 1, Issue 5 >
        • THE TRIALS OF TOBIT by Joseph Lisowski
        • LIKE MANY GIANT FOOTPRINTS (and other poems) by William Doreski
        • AURELIA: A BALLET IN PROSE (ACT I) by Sakina B. Fakhri
      • AZURE Volume 1, Issue 4 >
        • WARDENCLIFF by Barbara Daddino
        • BETTER LIVING THROUGH CHEMISTRY by Reg Darling
        • AURELIA: A BALLET IN PROSE (LIBRETTO) by Sakina B. Fakhri
      • AZURE Volume 1, Issue 3 >
        • LAWTON, OKLAHOMA by Mark Lawley
        • TWEETY BIRD'S GRACE by Diana McClure
        • CONTAGION AND THE DINNER GUEST by Sakina B. Fakhri
        • ON POETRY AND PROSE by Sakina B. Fakhri
      • AZURE Volume 1, Issue 2 >
        • TWO MICE IN A BLACK BOX & THE DECONSTRUCTION OF LANGUAGE by Sakina B. Fakhri
      • AZURE Volume 1, Issue 1 >
        • CHARACTER SKETCHES by Diana McClure
        • SEASONS ON A GRAVESTONE by Sakina B. Fakhri
        • COCKTAIL PARTY by Diana McClure
        • DESUETUDE by Sakina B. Fakhri
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