Persuasion

This poem depicts an incident that happened in November of 1967. In this incident, I was afraid to confront one of my peers and I was afraid of the reaction from my platoon. However, my conscience led me to a right decision.

Persuasion

Our patrol had moved out
into the rice paddies
about a quarter mile from the village gate.
Z was a short distance ahead of me
when he reached
the first hooch in
this area that we called
the “Bowling Alley.”
He walked to the hooch,
took out his lighter, and raised it.
His intention was to
torch the grass dwelling
while the little old man,
whose dwelling it was,
in desperation and anguish
begged him to stop.
Z’s mind was made up
until I raised my weapon,
leveled it at his head and
yelled, “I’ll shoot you if you burn it.”
With little hesitation he
extinguished the lighter,
dropped his arm,
and walked away.


Robert Jost

Convergence

The incident that this poem describes I believe happened a few weeks after the first and largest battle our battalion experienced. We had lost many men. For me, war was a complex experience.

Convergence

Each end of our quarter
Circle perimeter touched
The banks of two streams
Slightly above where their
Waters’ converged.
Orders were to kill
Whoever moved inside.

The sun set.
Hours later, when the
Celestial lights
Shown through the
Tenebrous clouds,
There came the sound
Of movement. From the
Brush at water’s edge,
At the point of the streams’
Meeting, he emerged.
After a few seconds,
it became clear that
he carried no weapon.

Holding a farming tool or
The navigating pole of his boat
He walked toward
My position—toward me.
“Should I fire?”
“Is he VC or a farmer with a
Family—or both—caught
Out after curfew?”

He kept striding while
I sat with my
M-16. As he walked
By we shared an un-
Comfortable look. Then
I peered as his figure
Faded into the night
And into my memory.


Robert Jost

Tenderness

“Tenderness” was the second poem I wrote. It was twenty-seven years after the fact. I hadn’t thought of this incident until the fall of 1995. The memories that forms “Tenderness” came to me in parts. I wrote a first draft, however, I knew something was missing. A few days later, while I lay on my bed relaxing the most intense memories that make up this poem slowly appeared in my mind.

Tenderness

I remember a few days or
A week or two before the night we
Had a couple of good conversations—
The ones that touch to the depth.
We talked of combat, of your being
Wounded twice and, I’m sure,
Of the simple things that moved us.

That night in Anu Tan, on
December the 10th, in the midst
Of the battle, while I was on
The chopper pad ready to
Send more wounded out on
Dust-offs*, I saw you coming
Toward me, helping—bringing
A wounded brother in. When
I looked I saw that you were
Wounded, but you said,
“Only slightly,” “There are more
Wounded on the perimeter,” you said.
Then you turned to go back and help.
I almost let you, but something
I sensed said, “Don’t let him go.”
Then that something from
Deep within me welled up
And I said, tentatively,
“Get on that chopper,” but you
Couldn’t hear from the noise.
Then it welled up to fill me
And it broke through. I ran
To you as you walked away
And grabbed you by the back
Of your fatigue jacket, and stopped
You. When you turned in
Surprise I looked at you and in
The fear that I couldn’t persuade
You and almost in desperation,
With all the strength my twenty-
Year-old spirit could muster,
The words exploded out
From me: “Get on that chopper,
Get the fuck out of this
Motherfuckin’ place!
Don’t go back and get killed!”
I said, “I’d get on if I could,
But I ain’t wounded. This is
Your third time**. It’ll get you
Off the line, so go yourself since
You have the chance!” I begged—
Almost forced you to leave.

I don’t remember your name, but
I will never forget the look we
Shared through that open
As that chopper lifted off, when
I stared into your dark face,
Into your eyes, as we were
Surrounded by the noise and
The turbulence created by the
Motor and those blades that
Drowned out the sound of sporadic
Small arms fire and exploding
Rounds; we shared that quick,
Yet intense look
Lighted by that flare-lit night.

I will never forget the Love.



*med-evac helicopter
**It was customery in Vietnam that a soldier who was wounded three times would be given a rear position away from combat.

Robert Jost

A Prophetic Message

The poet Ted Hughes wrote this poem with young men in mind. Young women participated in combat now. His words now concern both genders. This poem hangs on the door of an Oakland, California Veterans Administration counselor.

Do not madden our young men
With the hiss of the whetstone
And the dream . . . of purging themselves
Of all their bodily violence
In the rapture of battle.
Do not addict them
To the drug of danger --
The dream of the enemy
That has to be crushed, like a herb,
Before they can smell freedom.

A Good Friday Poem

This poem is the first that ever that I wrote. It opens my masters thesis. I wrote it in 1996. It comes from an intense place and relates an intense experience.

In Ponchos

They had been kill/died
The day/the night before.
Now they lie in the distance,
Fifteen/twenty, lined
Side by side on a narrow
Rice paddy road
Wrapped in ponchos
To be flown away.

“But we sleep wrapped in ponchos.
They’re just asleep!
It’s ten o’clock in the morning.
The sun’s hot.
It’s too hot &
Too late to sleep!
I’ll run to them &
Shake them & yell
Roll Out! Get Up!”

But they’re
Dead.

For the Parents--Revised Introduction

"For the Parents" is as relevant today as it was when I went to war. A discussion I had a few years ago with friends concerning how parents might feel if their child went to war prompted this poem. As a parent, this conversation prompted me to think about how I might feel if my son went to war. It is not meant to agitate parents whose child or children are in war or parents whose child will be in war. It merely reflects my understanding of war and how parents might deal with the emotional, psychological, and spiritual difficulties related to having one's child in combat. The "variations" speak of the support that family and community could give to war strained parents and their son or daughter soldiers.

For the parents whose child is a
combat soldier in war:

Don’t think
of the odds: sixty percent
wounded, ten percent killed,
and many deeply scared.

Think,
My child is dead.

Then Pray,
'cause in war
survival's a
miracle.

Variations
For the son or daughter whose father and/or mother is . . .
For the sister or brother whose sister and/or brother is: . .
For the wife or husband whose spouse is . . .
For the partner whose partner is . . .
For the grand parent whose grandchild is . . .
For the uncle or aunt whose niece and/or nephew is . . .
For the cousin whose cousin is . . .
For the woman or man whose sweetheart is
For the neighbor whose neighbor is . . .
For the in-law whose in-law is . . .
For the mail deliverer, grocery clerk, dry cleaner, baker, etc. whose customer is . . .
For the councilperson, mayor, senator, etc. whose constituent is . . .
For the president, prime minister, etc whose fellow citizen is . . .
For the country whose citizens are . . .
For the citizen of the world whose fellow citizen is . . .
For the human whose fellow human is . . .
For the God whose loving creation is . . .


Robert Jost

Three Shots

"Three Shots" is a poem that I had wanted to write for quite some time. I wrote it late last year based on an incident in which I was intimately involved. I did not witness parts of the incident and wrote based on others' accounts. However, a friend who witnessed what I did not see confirmed the accuracy of what I wrote. I have placed an image that he gave me in the poem's last line. I wrote "Three Shots" without moral evaluation; it is merely a graphic image of war.

Three Shots—A Narrative

We hear, “Get Down! Choppers say there’s
VC coming our way!” Behind a

rice paddy dike, a hundred meters from a river,
I lay,
peering over the dike’s top,
waiting
apprehensively.

The V.C.—
two young men in shorts,
stripped to the waist, with
no visible weapons, run out
of the bush into the open.
They’re 85 meters away. As they cross

our field of fire, we open up. In the
barrage, I fire hitting one.
He falls.
In exhilaration I shout,
“I got the motherfucker!”

As we move forward, the man
raises his hand and
head.
Is he holding a grenade or is he surrendering?
A shot rings out. Pierced
through his eye into his brain,
the young man falls back, still
alive. When he

reaches the man’s position, our captain draws
his pistol and extends it at
arm's length. Standing

over the young man, he kills him with
a shot him through the head as
the young man,
without words,
with arms outstretched,
begs for mercy. In a few minutes, after

exploding grenades in the river attempting
to kill the man who escaped,
we gather into squads and platoons.
Walking on,
we continue our mission while a
young man’s brains leak out
onto the earth.

For my first posting, a poem.

The inspiration for this poem was a line from Billy Collins' poem "Nightclub." In the poem the narrator speaks of sitting in a nightclub listening to jazz singer Johnny Hartman and the music that allows those listening to "slip by degree into a rythmic dream." That line made me think of a time in which I slipped by degree into a flashback. This poem depicts the original experience that was the flashback's sourse.

Nature and the Unnatural

Harsh natural forces: searing heat and humidity, freezing cold and wind; and
forces unnatural: life draining and death dealing
conflict, lead the unprotected
into havoc.

Natural and gentle
forces:
breezes, rustling leaves,
chirping birds, the cosmic dance
can induce one into
a rhythmic dream.

A young soldier once stood in nature.
Harsh natural forces and forces unnatural
placed him
in an environment of

discordance
and
disintegration.

Sleep deprived, he’d walked beyond
exhaustion carrying the weight of
war:
a weapon, ammunition, grenades,
numbing fear.

Dazed, he stands in a swamp.
The sun’s mid-day heat ricochets off the
water’s blazing surface
invading
his
body
and
being

Energy continues to
waste
from him as he waits
for orders to move on and
for the elements of war:
exploding,

ripping

slaughtering
booby-traps and ambushes,
battles:
chaos.

He is little more than a shell,
insides spent,
waiting zombie-like to
continue on
into
oblivion.