1968 Overtures Poem by Ted Sheridan

I was dreaming of the war the other night;
I had returned with all of my weapons loaded
to the jungles of my misspent youth.
The helicopter size mosquitoes immediately
recognized my malaria as their ancestral strain.
The Hyenas that had once rightly laughed
at my naiveté as a boy; weren’t laughing,
as with forty years of experience tacked on…
to what had never really been a killer’s instinct
I was much more dangerous and less predictable.
There were still the usual tigers in fatigues
and the starving buzzards, circling above my head
having fed on the dried out marrow of my brothers bones
they were looking for a yet another firefight, but I
could not oblige them with a convenient kill.
I looked around for the familiar face of Death.
I sniffed the air and the putrid smell of war
had all but totally disappeared.
We who had come and conquered that jungle;
we who had departed as soulless victors over a defoliated land
only to be decorated with shame by the hisses and boos of public opinion,
could now be proud of our legacy….in spite of ourselves.
I was dreaming of the war the other night; it was to be
a peaceful reunion with a few of my dead friends….

2008 © TS