the moral order of the Universe

the moral order of the Universe
can not be found in the tea party

i second that amendment

once a week with a cosmic purpose
i'm making a domestic problem
for myself over an electric toaster
burning my bread
or whether to drink that third beer
with a lemon or a lime

i once carried an M16 fully automatic rifle
every day before breakfast i grabbed it
and at night i would clean the barrel

for 13 months day and night we slept together
like lovers in a tiny prison cell
like an arm with it's finger
without proving a point
about Constitutional rights or Aryan Nations
or Superman comics for a distraction
or small-breasted teenage blonds kissing my neck
and without knowing if God was on my side and i
had the opportunity to ask

i studied America by being an American
in a strange land
with many people talking and gesturing and encouraging,
shouting, and trying to hurt the bad when knowing
who the bad was proved difficult

i wanted to write poetry when i was twenty-four because
i was in love with a young lady and wanted
to please my mother

i thought the Universe
was not silent and i should toss out some random word
a descriptive phrase
a clarion call in prose to capture
an odor
a snap shot of a fleeting sound
a yearning
a death rattle
perhaps the color of a toy

i landed in Saigon in 1969 and had to admit i was not
a natural warrior sitting in an old air force hanger
waiting with a new green duffel bag
and wearing shiny black boots

i was isolated against a metal wall, my skin
sweating in the Asian heat, the wall hot the floor hot

i felt weak for the task ahead
not sure what that was
but i wanted answers
which couldn't be found on the cement floor

i kept looking for a wagon to hitch a ride in but it wasn't nearby

too many green men
nervous faces and legs kicking and screaming
this way and that

they must have had an important mission

i found myself liking them and knew any conversation
would be casual if i'd have the opportunity to speak


my helicopter ride to Team 95 where my official orders
commanded my presence
was brief and i wondered:

why did i feel important not having to take the bus or ride in a jeep
the long and dangerous distance to my assignment?

but i did feel apart
from the people i was sent to save

they looked like tiny refugees below our flight path
stuck in a blur of rice wine color paddy indifference
hooch ville squalor
in an Asian sort of way

30 minutes in air and i landed near Bien Hoa and became an
American soldier at war without any romantic notions

the door gunner said to me that i had to get out

i left. Johnson was the President.

i was still there when Nixon became the President.

nothing changed.

i saw alan king in his black afro perform his handshake ritual
but only with his brothers.

i saw Audie Murphy holster his gun, carrying the severed ears
of an enemy solider, which was a war crime.

i saw funerals and flowers, many dead.

i saw prisoners of war and the camp, the crafts they worked
to pass the time.

i was hot, as i've said. it was rainy during the monsoon, which i forgot to say.

i am back in the World, the land of the big PX, out of that Hell
out of the battlefield which was in the control of the Viet Cong and the
North Vietnamese soldier, those men and women with hot blood, as hot
as the sun maybe hotter

the idea of Nationalism stoked their fire,

and they were ready to accept death on a personal level
for their country.

i couldn't defeat such valor.

my Pacific crossing was an interregnum

now i walk the deck of my own landed boat
enjoying the submersion
of myself and my problems, listening with pleasure to
the cattle call of the new American revolutionaries

those who haven't yet had the opportunity to ride in a helicopter
in a combat zone with an ambitious driver at the controls

yet they face
the same issues i faced in Vietnam and that is knowing
who the real enemy is and how to proceed inside the chaos.