DESOLATE DREAM

a Yankee wind
pushing a cold white moon
a needle sliding into the arm
of a boy from Indiana
who is now too old
who should have died long ago in southeast Asia
begging morphine for the pain

who wandered the halls of section eight
wrote heroin poetry on walls and old doors
about mountains and ridges and monsoon
green places, ... enemy faces.

"OVERDOSE," THEY SAID
"ADDICTED TO HEROIN."

I think it was more like addicted to Nam.

Binh-thien-ha brother
Binh-thien-ha

©Copyright 2001 by Lou J. Klaiber