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Contests : War Poetry Contest : Past Winners : 2008 : Glenn Buttkus
ON PATROL
You snake along
on your belly,
your bare elbows stained
with black soil;
with red fire ants
chewing the fungus
beneath your fatigues;
while the jungle flora jiggling
near your nose
becomes mirage mammaries, tipped
with swollen pink nipples
that tickle your tongue
with their fern sweetness.
You ford a warm stream
hoping
it won't be squirming
with savage fish,
or lousy with leeches,
also hungry
for blood.
You pay no heed
to the green-eyed beasts
of the night,
whose every movement
punches the fear lump
in your colon,
and rattles the steel wool
in your throat.
Your eyes are extremely clear,
hawk-like,
but they detect nothing
in the tropical ink.
Your caked nostrils are flaring,
full of the acrid midnight mist
hanging heavy in the humid canopy
hiding
the moon and the stars,
and leaving every tree pregnant
with the possibility
of snipers.
This is recon, man,
and you understand
you cannot afford
to fire your weapon.
No sweat, just
recite the lines
of your very complete indoctrination;
hate the Asian today,
so that you might be his friend
tomorrow,
when he thinks as you do,
and pays you for the privilege.
But on this day,
this night,
Kill him
before he kills you,
as he was ordered
to do.
Hell, you know
a man dies easily—
one of the easiest animals
there is
to kill.
He has no claws,
and his bite is puny;
dispatched with a flash of steel,
or a well placed fist or thumb;
alive one moment,
dead meat the next.
Goddamn—
he
is suddenly there,
in front of you,
also on patrol;
crouched in a bush
with his back to you,
with shards of moonlight
barely making visible
his NVA uniform;
the fucking stupid looking pith helmet,
those deep red insignias;
cradling a AK-47.
You gently lay
your M -16 aside,
and your sharp assault knife
slides lethal
out of its khaki scabbard.
When you're close enough
to smell his armpits,
the gook hears you;
but his late response
will cost him dearly.
You leap upon
the smaller man,
and he grunts
"Dinky-dau"
before your left hand covers his mouth.
You were a heartbeat slower
than you should have been
and your adversary will not submit
without a struggle.
So you roll in the elephant grass
together,
with your arms and legs
wrapped around each other,
like lovers;
his muffled cries
become frenzied
as your naked blade
rips his flesh
and cuts through his bones.
Until the moment
both of you are on your knees
facing each other,
and for three blinks
you are able to look deep
into the painful bulging eyes
of the country
you have come to conquer.
Death finally comes
sweetly
for your yellow opponent,
and his desperate grip relaxes
on the thick muscles
of your forearms.
Now his bare head rests
against your heaving chest
like a tired child.
You let go of him,
and his limp body collapses
beneath you, lying like
something broken.
He is dead,
and though victorious,
a tiny part of you
expires
after taking his life.
Your strong heart thumps
as you blow spit bubbles
in the fresh blood
that covers your mouth.
You pick up a scrap of paper
he had been reading
when you came up on him,
dropped from his dead fist.
It was the lyrics to
"California Dreaming"
in English.
Stuffing the paper into your pocket,
as your only battle trophy,
you crawl off.
Yes,
dinky-dau;
it's all fucking crazy.
This poem was a finalist in the 2008 War Poetry Contest sponsored by Winning Writers. Copyright is reserved to the author.
About Glenn Buttkus
I am a Rehabilitation Specialist, working at the Department of Veteran's Affairs Blind Rehab Center, VA American Lake, in Tacoma, Washington. I think that I was born a movie buff. I had young parents, and as a family we went to the movies weekly.
Movie palaces of the 50's were places of worship for me. When I was 30 years old, I had already seen 5,000 films. I still go to movies at least twice a week. I do regret I never became a journalist; film critic. I took the Actor's path instead. My old friend, John Hartl, Seattle Times film critic, was just a cub reporter for the U of W paper in the 70's. A gang of us, pre-video days, used to gather in his basement and watch bootleg 35 mm films. Many of that gang went on to create the Seattle Film Society. I have a VHS/DVD video collection that numbers more than 11,000 films. My entire 1500 sq.ft. basement is floor to ceiling in shelves. My love affair with movies is eternal. Are there movies after death? Of course there are, and I'll bet they are really impressive.
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