Poem: Thank you for your hospitality

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Thank you for your hospitality

from the book: Life Will Get You in the End:
Short stories by David Satterlee

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Life Will Get You in the End:
Short Stories by David Satterlee

A poem of the “police action” in Vietnam. Also a disturbing piece. Note: contains violence and some profanity. This is mean stuff for grownups. Even the ending line of every stanza shatters the cadence and rhyme of what came before. 

No, I didn’t serve in Vietnam, but people I knew did. Many of my readers will not remember what a dark, angry, and desperate time that was — for both sides. This came out of a dark place that surprised me too. [Note: contains profanity]

Thank you for your hospitality

A poem of the “police action” in Vietnam.

by David Satterlee

No, I didn’t serve in Vietnam, but people I knew did. Many of my readers will not remember what a dark, angry, and desperate time that was — for both sides. This came out of a dark place that surprised me too. [Note: contains profanity]

Nothing so rapturous, so beauteous, and grand
As napalm applied to a section of land.
Earth dances and sways and it bucks where you stand;
Consuming at once, in cataclysmic orgasm, every foe, every friend, every frond, every f-ing leach.

Don’t know when to duck; there’s never alarm.
Shot at by snipers. Pinned down near some farm.
I cradled a buddy as he died with no arm.
He gave as a gift the last whisper of breath from his lips.
I would have liked to shake his hand.

Pacify, pacify, pacify thou.
We’re torching your