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Contributor: Gary Jacobson || Poem Categories

You Don't Know Me Anymore country as flag
You Don't Know Me Anymore
Felled in that crazy Asian war
I've just walked through the door
Bruised in body and spirit sore
Mom and dad lovingly kiss their son
Their golden beloved one
For whom for the longest year they fretted
Through tears their pillow wetted.

You Don't Know Me Anymore
For I've just walked through hell
Still caught up in its noxious smell
Gunpowder �n cordite still burning my nostrils
Still haven't got over deadly fears and other thrills
Depending on neighbors... so close to strangers
Watching the backs of fraternal brothers,

You Don't Know Me Anymore
I'm not the same boy I was before
That damned war
Bivouacking with the boys on the great campout
Watching closely lingering shadows all about
Walking beside dangerous hue in primal shout
Embroiled in Nam's eternal walkabout.

They Don't Know Me Anymore
My girl next door
Beaucoup friends galore
They will never understand
Can't even begin to comprehend
Maybe once... not now
Zin Loi, the world too much Dinky Dau!

You Don't Know Me Anymore
For I have my brother Cain killed...
Great guilt eating at my heart with danger filled
Fears in my fevered brain drilled
Because of agitation in anxiety I won't be sleeping
Preoccupied with men out there dedicating
Their every living breath to my dying.

You Don't Know Me Anymore
For I'm no longer a fresh twink newbie
Though betimes I act like a zombie
Who for his country bled
Harboring angst of the living dead
This grizzled combat veteran staunch and true
Who has paid the devil's due.

You Don't Know Me Anymore
When staring eyes roam far away
Back to that grotesque little fray
Bearing my Thousand Yard despair
Thousands of unbidden memories take me back there
Still fighting god-awful attacks
With sweet-and-sour flashbacks.

You Don't Know Me
I'm out of step... out of rhyme
Fighting abandoned feelings lost in time
Forever entangling entrapped memories
Seeing haunted eyes as the light goes out of your enemies
Seeing eyes of dying buddies returned now to dust
Forever remembering mired blood stained rust.

Even I Don't Know Me Anymore
I'm not the same boy I was before
I'm moody... except when stoically sullen
Still searching for moral values by war stolen
Jumping at shadows, I'm no hero Herculean
Contemplating ending this forever struggle
Fraught on this once proud American eagle.
By Gary Jacobson
Copyright 2010
Listed December 13, 2010

About Author... In 1966-67, Gary Jacobson served with B Co 2nd/7th 1st Air Cavalry in Vietnam as a combat infantryman and is the recipient of the Purple Heart.

Gary, who resides in Idaho writes stories he hopes are never forgotten, perhaps compelled by a Vietnamese legend that says, "All poets are full of silver threads that rise inside them as the moon grows large." So Gary says he writes because "It is that these silver threads are words poking at me � I must let them out. I must! I write for my brothers who cannot bear to talk of what they've seen and to educate those who haven't the foggiest idea about the effect that the horrors of war have on boys-next-door."

Visit Gary Jacobson's site for more information

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