GHOST WARS by Vince Gotera
Cedar Falls, IA: Final Thursday Press, 2003

The Vietnam Vet Plays Gyruss
by Vince Gotera
after William Winfield's "December"

Diamond bullets streak through diamond stars
like rounds screaming in from some other war.

I have metaled my name into molten ingots
and shrapneled them into Charlie.

I have tied my hands,
given them over to brass.

I have strafed onetwothreefourfive farmersjustlikethat,
whole families of sampans on rivers of blood.

I have seen my face in spiraling CRT light.
I have traced my fire in the night, pulsing.

Streams of phosphor. Blue steel. Shadows
shifting in the green treeline of the perimeter.

I have fed my heart on Dear John letters,
on Jody and my girl, on DEROS to shoot him.

Enemies gyre now from the center, black hole
birthing alien spaceships, photon torpedoes.

I lay down fire, frozen into this orbit, round
and round, piling up scores like a body count.

These crystal bits that pass for sky, the dark
slot lit again and again by serrated edge of silver.

© Vince Gotera