Why Use Poetry in a Novel? Part III
In Chapter Fourteen, page 84 of the Boot: A Sorta Novel of Vietnam, we have another poem by Bill McCloud, author of The Smell of the Light. In this descriptive verse, you can almost conjure up the smell of bodies that were ubiquitous in Vietnam. The smell permeated your clothing, the insides of the helicopters, and pretty much lingered in the air around you and infected the currents of your mind. It was, as Bill says, ‘An aroma of uncertainty.’
The smell of death
combines the scents of
almonds
fish
garlic
roses and
shit and also
something undefined
An aroma of uncertainty
A fear of the future
In Chapter Twenty-Five, page 192, we have Bill McCloud’s poem, ‘Eating Glass,’ from his book, The Smell of the Light, published by Balkan Press. I feel very honored that Bill would allow me to use this particular poem in my book. Bill was able to capture and sum up the moral outrage many of the soldiers felt at the exploitation of the Vietnamese children. Children who had lost parents, aunts and uncles, and sometimes their entire families. Bill is able to take this familiar scene in Vietnam and implant it our collective brains. It encapsulates all the strange things you see that you cannot 'unsee.' They become images forever imbedded in your memory ... and replay way too often.
The first time I saw
a preschool kid
smoking a cigarette I
just stood and stared
Mama-sans squatting
to pee along the road
never drew a second glance
But a child casually smoking
was hard for me to unsee
For a month I had a
reoccurring dream of
a smoking toddler a
circus performer eating glass
and a ward filled with
Thalidomide babies
But after about
four weeks the dream
became a memory of
a dream of a memory
In Chapter Twenty-Seven of Boot, page 220, Bill McCloud shares the feelings that many enlisted Marines had in Vietnam about being in the service. In Mail Call, Bill captures that feeling most soldiers and Marines experience when they hear the words, ‘Mail Call!’ This poem is also a reminder that we have the ability to switch character as our reality dictates, and that time is an unfathomable concept in our minds.
Mail call is my daily
reminder of who I
am in real life My
parents grandparents
loved ones have no real
idea what I am like as
a Marine what my life
is like as a Marine
So their letters are
always upbeat missives
sent to the guy they
knew The guy who was
the real me The guy now
just wearing someone
else’s Marine uniform
Chapter Twenty Nine is based on Wilfred Owen’s famous poem, Dulce et Decorum Est, an admonition to mothers not to glorify war to their children. On page 238 of Boot, Bill encapsulates every combat soldiers’ true feelings about the war in Vietnam, whether they were American or Vietnamese. Bill writes about all of the fear and uncertainty, the guilt and the shame of living when others were dying, and the utter hopelessness and constant depression experienced by those in combat. Bill puts Wilfred's and my thoughts into perspective.
I don’t want to die
in this fucken war
This war is not worthy
of my death It’s not
worthy of my life
It’s a fucken war
I don’t want to die
Until Next Time,
I Remain,
Just another Zororastafarian poet looking for his lost shaker of salt…
