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
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