Scars

Whatever draft-dodgers pamphlet I was given

Never touched me with its luck.

On a day where the sky seemed the limit,

with its blue fields of fallacy,

I was taped to the ground, and now bound

to fight a great man’s war. See now though,

I’m no great man. I smoke dope. I drink liquor.

Im content with my movement.

I did not sign up to go to war Mr. President!

Now you’ve killed me, but nobody calls you

a murder.

I wrote you letters when Rich

never returned from the jungles,

from the bullets caste beneath his skin,

trailing like veins with the blood to follow.

I’m not a panther. I’m not a hippie. I’m a man,

who is too young marry,

too young to live on his own.

So how can you say I’m the right age to kill?

How can you sign my name and caste it off,

like a fishing boat amongst a perfect storm.

Yet I set sail.

It’s been a year since I began this piece.

Vietnam is everything they show on television,

cut out the static and cast it in green.

“Throw in some boredom and you’ve got a war, son!”

That’s what I always say.

And on these days of waiting for the enemy,

I find myself looking in these old books.

I was never a panther. I was never a hippie.

Never was a boy at all, really.

I was always a machine underneath though.

A machine that has the ability to wait

For the next kill.

To follow orders of destruction,

Like shades of brown, cutting down these hues of green.

Shading them to the darkest edge.

And now I sit here thinking of dope and liquor,

and how they’ll numb the wounds

this war has carved into me.

And the scars will always show.

And the scars will always show.