He Was a Combat Soldier

Phyllis Rogers, ,

A purple heart
No loss of limb
No burns or scars
No bullet wounds
No embedded shrapnel
No Punji stick impalement

Blunt force trauma
From acrid stench
Stench of death
Torn flesh unidentifiable
Words just spoken
Disappeared into silence

Sitting on a hill
Alone amid unspeakable
Unspeakable horror
Seared into the brain
Brain matter is grey
Confirmed by witness

Plumes of smoke
Napalm bursts through
Distant jungle bush
Hueys whir above
For a clear LZ
To liftoff dead and dying

Foreign voices heard
Twigs snapping underfoot
Sweat distorting sight
Hail Mary full of grace
Grace invisible
Invisible but breathing

No way but down
Down into the abyss
Nothingness waits
But seven years
Of Thorazine
Who wants to dream?

© Copyright Jan 3, 2018…Phyllis Rogers
Video from youtube.com compiled by Callum Johnston

Published by Phyllis Rogers

I'm a married retired nurse living on beautiful Lake Palestine in the East Texas piney woods. I seek to deepen my walk with the Lord. I have 5 dogs, a pair of Mandarin ducks, and three pair of Ringed Teals. They are all a source of great pleasure. I love growing vegetables, fruits and florals. I spent the first 26 years of my life in the Houston area. The concrete and traffic took its toll and I moved to East Texas and have lived a rural existence since. I have always written as a means of expression throughout my life since I was in elementary school. It is something I've always had to do. My brain just works that way. It travels all the time, by land or sea or air it's always traveling.

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