DEAR JOHN

By Larry Winters

Dear John.
Now

It's the style
It's the Vogue.

Now

Writers are writing about blood
that's nothing but red dust.
Kids are wearing jungle suits to school
with no bullet holes in them.
At home they're pumping M-16's.

Now
It's the rage.
Cause the rage in the Vet is old.
Tears and beers, have grown cataracts
over eyes that once sighted M 60 machine guns.

Now

Step up, its hip after 19 years down the road.
It's safe to slap him on his back,
metals are hidden, family broken.

Remember he was the hot cat, the baby killer
who slipped into the darkness of the seventies to cool.

Now

he's back slapping leather down the main drag,
with ticker tape in his grey hair.
The media grinds one last dry hump out of him.

Now

Stand closer, Rambo has made you brave.
Raise your hand and slap a thanks on the boys.
Not so many left,
58,000 laid down in Nam.
Over 1000,000 laid down here at home.
Suicide man.
Our kids know about that.

Now

Let's thank our boys
for selling those hearts and minds so cheap
so we could keep what we could keep.

AMERICA

By Larry Winters

I killed for you.
You may not have asked me to
But I killed for you.
I didn't support the war.
But I killed for you and for me.

I killed for you
While you paid your taxes.
You watched me kill on TV.
While eating cheese burgers.
Or protesting what I was doing.
Or avoiding the draft.
Or going to school.
Or running off to Canada.

Still I killed for you.
While you waited in the line at the supermarket.
When you were out getting drunk.
When you got your first good job after college.
As you enjoyed free love.
I killed for you.
I have carried pain for you.
Guilt for you.
Shame for you.
For all the killing I did for you.
When I came home
You expected me to heal for you.
To get on with my life for you.
To be productive for you.
To marry for you.
To raise children for you.
To forget for you.

I will never let you forget that
I killed for you.

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