Vietnaming names they blacked out of docs, alphabet black ops
Men sweat so much they’re made of salt
Heat trapped in by a verdant vault
Riddled fronds mark where they repelled last night’s assault
It’s so hot the gunmetal boils, hotter than I ever recall
Lightless flame and flameless light, the blameless dead in the charmless night
The guns recoil as if in horror
There is surrender with honour
There is – radio shhhed by screeching bomber
Burns from that napalm no balm will salve
A line of pleasant palms bullseyed by missile salvo.
Sailing grenades wailing at eachother like duelling banshees
Sailing downriver no one ever plucked a banjo here
Deliverance, risen up from death or fear.
Purple haze and a whole rainbow of chemicals
Mirrored aviators, copper tache with an attache case that’d stock an alchemist
Green berets caught red handed, the tower of bayoneted babies by now rancid stands for
Unsure what my stance is, keep my boots planted
Elephantine gods who rose and reigned before the fall, their visage haunting pillars in the jungles under fog
Poison frogs throning logs, lizards the size of dogs, deep sucking bogs, rampaging feral hogs, older things that scarce evolved
Enemy presence here is strong, I can sense a thousand vietcong
Yet I cannot see a single one.
Burnt body clean up, sagging bags tagged boys inside them
War is hell his helm decrees, swoops low brests ruinous debris
Smoke smell on the breeze, a lifetime’s debriefing needed
Heli door leaners disrupt the rice harvest, shot up the crop
They shout sorry when a stray dog cops one, wordless for dead sons
Fevers out here’ll turn a man inside out, shit squirting out red like had rusted spout
Heavy smoke session, eyes to heaven
Souls of levelled friends ascended
Life the bread’s unleavened present
Heavy rain means heavy shelling, keep Charlie at bay
Practising drills, marching in formation when jungle to single file distils
Can’t have another Tet offensive, mindset defensive
Pensieve hippy soldiers bouldered on witch finger blems
Odour from the open tentflap, disorder in the ranks
Imagine giving them an order
If each death is expensive, here is mounting debt.
Spend your birthday on sandbags
Fewest bloodstains makes glad rags
Bent double like old hags
Two gunners trading fags for mags
Send your sister a thanks card
Fresh socks, my feet wet which never mine met
On my account don’t fret
By my count six months left
Pray my gun won’t jam, sending best to the fam
Signing off lights are shining on, sun force through dark like a battering ram.
We’re fighting ghosts
You can’t nuke ideas
Bombing and bombing
And bombing to free us.
The Gunboat sides would scald your hole
Flotilla fleet like a surface shoal
Forward stole, through gunfire wove
Settling smoke white as peace doves
Bullets spiral
Turning from horrors to solace of bible
Helis saw in firing rockets
Torture victims left to mock us
Nothing shocks us
In Hannoi line of mannish boys muddying their waters
Emptied for pointless death in goalless slaughter
The river is brown and murky, teems with scabrous form
Every vile thing there abounds, even fish sporting horn
Da Nang is loud with bangs, Apache nose with painted fangs.
Enough rizlas to shroud a mummy, forget you miss your mummy
Mist your mind, it feels lovely, sandbags almost snugly
Out here reside villains, valiants, dalliances behind french valances
Shifted power balances, old crumbling residences
If you’re moving, keep moving like a machiavellian schemer
Under torture realized your handlers never laid out the schema.
Skeet bites itch like eczema, exert you to death out here
Every second plants feeler is a life stealer
Never been a kneeler but Rimmon’s altar appeals
An apple is peeled and placed into a stuck pig’s mouth, sides of trout and pints of cloudy stout for portly majors
Men are kept like beasts, beaten like curs, suspended until lamed in watery cages
Stages of grief, meaningless the musings of sages in a rank pit swimming with dire phages
There are no roads between hills tramped passable by steers
Artillery sinks down into bog like a corn king’s torn corpse when the rivers near.
Alchemisland 
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