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…