Agent Orange
Charles Monette
An Bian's Bullet Ballet
Charles Monette
Seven of us on patrol… jungle, Vietnam
Voices, “Charlie talking, hear em?”
Fan out…move… there … dried-up stream-bed… ambush
I am a bush, can’t see me, he’s talking an’ joking on a Sunday stroll
They walk into… a moment… we see him first
He sees us… a moment… his countenance begets fear… a moment
Our M-60 machine gunner opens up…. I join the fray
His body dances a bullet ballet
Slow motion slow … arms… legs flailing
Mournful music, jazz beats out another story of war… Then down!
He drops down. Squad gives chase to a wounded other, others?????
I go to the fallen soldier, NVA pay officer
Just us two… pas de deux,
Denouement
Still breathing unconscious, leg splintered open
Bent back, bone-exposed, blood oozing… no more ballet
Why am I here? ... Dinky dau
To say, “I’m sorry” …as I place my hand…, hien on his forehead
Gone, he’s gone… his spirit splits, didi mau, did I give the okay?
Just like that…. gone… dinky dau.. Where’s my bullet? my ballet?
They’re all mine………. he danced with grace, precision and fluidity
I wondered about his ballerina back home…
In the Vietnamese language, An = Peace, Bian = hidden, or secret
Dinky dau = crazy… didi mau = go quickly… Hien = gently
Secret agent orange has been here
low-crawling past newly splintered bodies
flying high midst the apex of the canopy
descending noir over all you see.
Black acrid smoke pervades the air
death in one of its most sinister masks
drips through the defoliated jungle,
Aluminum soap jellies engulfing each once-green leaf
Smothering all synthesis in its pallid cloak.
Make your buddy smile
Walked back-up to my point
Gave each other Credence as we ran thru the jungle
Wait-a-minute vines made us pause…
Red ants made us dance
Leeches with lanceolated bodies drained our life’s blood
Jungle rot from the fungi
Silently sidestepping the punji…
Till the freedom bird arrived at Bien Hoa to take us back to the world!
Engage candidly and movingly in your search for love
Shedding light on every facet of your life
Dig gently, firmly into spiritual emotional depths
Embrace what you find there
Compassion for others is compassion for self
Allow providence to ground and abet creation
Sing to children
Relegating your conscious self to a half-smiling spectator
When society renders our existence harsh
Remember the beautiful moments
Vaguely it is true, true enough
That one needs a dose of inspiration
When the mind wanders and knows not
Where it’s headed
We all suffer… doubt… regret…
Notice… feel… breathe out… watch them bubble down the stream
Breathe in steadfast courage… love… gentleness
Knowing that they will change again
Entertain an original vague idea
Dance with it, hold it close, and let it go…………
Friends Once
Charles Monette
An Original Vague Idea
Charles Monette
How does one reason?
When a government will pay more
To protect loggerhead turtles
As its veterans, home…less…ly sleep on its shore
Don’t get me wrong!
Not suggesting vetting veterans with mock turtle soup
Nor mocking the turtles, completing the loop
Nor ensnaring, or thrashing at loggerhead basin
Or sleeping in cardboard down at the station
With the greens, not the algae
Sliming the sloops of war
While the loggerhead bush logrolling liberty,
Shockingly, awfully, affronts Islam’s door
Sail home my sons
Have scope like before
Set free America,
She’s lonely once more
Oh, and as for those turtles
Caretta must be
Endangered as we all are
By our apathy…
I was his favorite
he found me in the woods and carried me home on his shoulders when I accidentally started a fire in my basement and ran away (I was about 5)
he pulled me on a toboggan to the school bus stop everyday after I broke my leg while skating on a pond when I was 6
he held me outside on the front steps of our house until I got over my temper tantrum
he said, “even Nicky is more mature than you” to my oldest sister Carol when I cleaned up the orange juice she had just thrown during an argument with my mom (with Mark coming to mom’s defense) I was probably 10 and Carol would have been about 20
he told me not to be fooled by this guy who came around for my sister-that the guy was just trying to “buy my friendship” by giving me candy
he bounced himself down on my bed where I was reading and asked me how our grandmother was doing(when she was living with us and senile and he was home from the army) I was probably 12 and he was about 19
he asked me to teach him piano(I showed him how to play “Hard Days Night”) and he began to teach me guitar(he learned from one of his army buddies)
He wrote me letters when he was in the army, telling me how proud he was of me when I got good grades and encouraging me to keep it up
He won a teddy bear at a carnival and brought it home for me
(I kept it until my 40s!)
He bought me a stone owl in Colorado while in the army
(and it still sits on my dresser)
I remember him as having high energy – he was sociable and restless and anxious to get out into the world.
I realize that the above is ALL I remember of him.
I guess it’s the same few memories playing over in my head all these years.
I have always thought/hoped that if he had lived, we would have become good adult friends.
