From GHOST ROAD
            by Alan Catlin

        THE GHOST ROAD

In Nam—
half in jest—
we called every
road, every path,
every where
we went highways
to hell and
they were
once you saw
where we went
when we walked
there ending up
like human
litter not fit
for body bags,
ghost patrols
for the dis-
embodied,
lost spirits
one and all

 

 

THE COMPANY
 

was made up
of streetwise
punks who’d
totally lost
their cool
backwoods okies
born with guns
in their cradles
instead of rattles
& apprentice
dead heads
totally stoked
on weed & speed
like a US of A
manufactured
set of ticking
time bombs
out on patrol
looking for a
field to blow
up in

 

DULCE ET DECORUM EST

                Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
                shall shine the holy glimmer of good-byes.
                                        Wilford Owen

At night the trip flares
are like a fireworks
display illuminating a no man’s
land fenced-in by concertina
wire, claymore mines and bouncing
bettys that go off one after
the other triggering a series
of pain cries all the duty free,
government issued booze in South
East Asia can’t make go away nor
all the primo, from beyond the DMZ
of the mind weed can’t make less real,
once the tracer rounds intersect
within an impromptu free fire zone
where all eyes stare transfixed
as if Death had declared a holiday
and this was the celebration.

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