http://www.thecie.org/gene/index.asp?s=POEMS Poems by Eugene McCarthy
MY LAI CONVERSATION
How old are you, small Vietnamese boy?
Six fingers. Six years.
Why did you carry water to the wounded soldier, now dead?
Your father.
Your father was enemy of free world.
You also now are enemy of free world.
Who told you to carry water to your father?
Your mother!
Your mother is also enemy of free world.
You go into ditch with your mother.
American politician has said,
"It is better to kill you as a boy in the elephant grass of Vietnam
Than to have to kill you as a man in the rye grass in the USA."
You understand.
It is easier to die
Where you know the names of the birds, the trees, and the grass
Than in a stranger country.
You will be number 128 in the body count for today.
High body count will make the Commander-in-Chief of free world much encouraged.
Good-bye, small six-year-old Vietnamese boy, enemy of free world.
~~
VIETNAM MESSAGE
We will take our corrugated steel
out of the land of thatched huts.
We will take our tanks
out of the land of the water buffalo.
We will take our napalm and flame throwers
out of the land that scarcely knows the use of matches.
We will take our helicopters
out of the land of colored birds and butterflies.
We will give back your villages and fields
your small and willing women.
We will leave you your small joys
and smaller troubles.
We will trust you to your gods,
some blind, some many-handed
..more poems..
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