On Shattered Graves

perspectives

On Shattered Graves 

Every month, my dead comrades and I gather around our crumbled graves, tell tales of lives long forgotten. The living have erased us from their memories, set fire to our exploits, and let its ashes wither away in the dustbins of time. But we still remember, for the dead can tell tales... immortal ghosts, soldiers of destiny that refused to ascend to another plane and chose instead to haunt the living and be echoes of the past---hidden and obscured by those manipulators of history who distorted facts and truth to suit their political and sociological needs. They also have a penchant for keeping the masses dumb, happy, and oblivious to history and facts that don’t suit the narrative they're selling.

When wars end, any war, it’s the victors who write its history, portraying the losing side as pariahs, evil agents of hell, or unguided or uneducated barbarians. But in reality, the victor's version is far from the truth. It’s our mission, the immortal ghosts, us warriors from those losing battles and wars, to haunt those living souls who are susceptible to ghostly emanations and set the record straight. We urge them to investigate, dig deep, and gather facts that authenticate our hauntings.

     As we gather in catacombs, unmarked graves, and untended mausoleums during our monthly visitations, we not only review lives and wars long forgotten but also document and mentally record some of the historical records authenticated and corrected by our ghostly visitations.

……

Ghost Dancing

     The ‘Ghost Dance’ rejuvenated my people.  It gave us hope in a hopeless land. For over two hundred and fifty years, from 1622 to 1890, we’ve been in constant warfare with the white man. They vastly outnumbered us, like locusts; they invaded every inch of our country. We fought bravely, had a few victories, but in the end, they defeated us not only in body but also in soul. They killed our buffalo, our primary food source, and made a sport of it. They took away our land, broke treaties, and threw us in reservations, which offered us harsh living conditions. But we tried to make the best of it, but in the end, it led to our slaughter.

     I’m called Spotted Elk by my people. I was the Chief of the Miniconjou, Lakota Sioux. I wasn’t a great warrior like my half-brother, Sitting Bull, or my cousin, Crazy Horse, but I was renowned as a Man of Peace. We were placed on the Cheyenne River Reservation in South Dakota, following the Sioux Wars. I settled many disputes, went to Congress to get better living conditions, and convinced my people to live peacefully with the White Devils. For devils are what they were for us.  We were a defeated and disheartened people.

In the spring of 1890, a Holy man named Wovoka introduced the Ghost Dance to the Sioux Nation. It transformed us. It promised us redemption. It promised the return of the buffalo and our ancestors, the restoration of our lands, and the disappearance of the white settlers.  The dance was a large circle community dance that lasted for days. The dance was accompanied by singing, fasting, and bathing, which sometimes produced trances and visions. The Lakota tribe embraced the movement. It brought me a whole new perspective. I realized that appeasing the White Man brought only pain. Of course, the Federal agents saw it as a threat and a seed to rebellion. They tried to ban and suppress it with beatings and arrests.  

     My people and I decided to leave the Cheyanne River Reservation. It’s harsh conditions, and the Federal Agents' repression of the Dance and Sitting Bulls murder made it an easy decision. We headed toward the Pinewood Reservation, a safer, more fertile, and productive land. When we reached our destination, we planned to continue with the peace talks.  I fell ill during the trip and could barely stand while we approached Wounded Knee. When we got there, we were surrounded by Soldiers and surrendered peacefully. They told us to throw down our weapons, but one soldier saw that one of us did not throw it down fast enough, so he shot him. Then all the soldiers fired; their hatred of us was unbounded. They massacred three hundred of us without provocation.           Unfortunately, the ghost shirts couldn’t stop the bullets. That’s when I became one of the immortal ghosts. I reached many open souls during the years of fighting for our rights.  It’s a slow process, but the Nation is finally being heard, and the Ghost Dance still lives.

 

Winterland

fractured dialogues
withered leaves on the vine

continental divide

lies
babble
dissonance
disharmony
desolation 
spiritual conundrum
democratic entropy

Once upon a time
in this Promised land 
railway snipers
slaughtered buffalo
for sport-
left thousands of corpses to rot
in the burning sun till
their bones were bleached white

the tribal nations 
of the Red Man were subjected
to   rape...plunder ...disease
by god-fearing Christians
who proclaimed that only 
the White Man was worthy 
to pass through the 
Gates of Heaven
     did not Jesus
die for the White Man’s sins?
that's what the preachers used to say
familiar tidings and echoes of yesterday... 

And now today and every day
the chaos has begun began and begins again
and again and again...

slithering tongues
sour fruits with tainted roots

fractured union

……

 

Rice Patties, Fire and Bullets

Napalm Memories

aces over eights

a slow walk in the jungle

tears fire and rain

 

 

     I wouldn’t give those sadistic b******s the satisfaction of screaming as they hoisted me up on chains by my thumbs. The pain was excruciating; I thought my thumbs were going to be severed from my hands. It took all my strength and willpower to smile and let both my middle fingers greet them.  I hung by my thumbs each time for about an hour. This was a weekly affair. They said they would only stop if I begged for mercy. I never did. My hands never worked the same again.

     I was a POW for six miserable years, four with the Viet Cong, moving from cage to cage, tunnel to tunnel, and the last two as guests of Hoa Lo, which we sarcastically called Hanoi Hilton, a notorious prison camp in North Vietnam. I was one of the few helicopter pilots relocated to Hoa Lo, which catered mostly to Navy and Air Force pilots. There were a few servicemen who served on the bombers, but it was mostly dehydrated and ill-fed pilots. All of us in these camps and prisons were beaten and tortured daily. Those of us who refused to cooperate or denounce our government were put through more strenuous torture.

     My name is meaningless in the scheme of things, but I was an officer in Special Forces, a Green Beret. I was on my third tour when I got shot down. On my last two tours, I was mainly a land grunt, involved in many firefights and shoot 'em ups. I was mainly a Dark Ops specialist. On my third tour, I flew the Firebirds, CH-47 Chinooks. We carried and dispersed 20-30 55-gallon drums of napalm. We lit the jungle on fire, burned villages, maimed, scarred, and killed anyone we thought was conspiring with or was the enemy. The effects are catastrophic. It sticks to targets, including skin. It causes deep agonizing burns and melting flesh. It’s also used to incinerate jungles, vehicles, and structures of any kind. It produced high casualties and traumatic injuries. There’s one image that will stick with my mind for eternity. After I did the drop on a village, I saw a young girl no more than twelve running on a dirt road, consumed in fire.  I still hear those screams.  I did 67 missions before I was shot down. I drew a pair of aces and eights.

     I was a hotshot; I liked to fly low to get a better view of my targets. I didn’t see the machine gun nest and rocket-propelled grenades below me. They had time to shoot us down before we burned them alive. I crash-landed away from the napalm fire.  My co-pilot and flight engineer died in the crash. I suffered a broken leg and arm. I could barely crawl. I was captured a few hours later by a squad of Viet Cong.

     They knew I was one of the Fire Breathers, that’s what they called us, and treated me as such. They left my arm and leg untreated for months and beat the hell out of me three to four times a day. Could you blame them? I was responsible for wiping out families and villages. They showed me some of my handiwork, burned and disfigured men and women who spat in my eyes and kicked me in my groin. For four years, I suffered nearly unbearable pain, but I never broke. When I got transferred to Hao Lo, it was like being in the real Hilton. They only beat me two or three times a week, and instead of bugs and rats to eat, they gave us rotten meat, cabbage soup, bread full of cockroach wings, and rice. A feast compared to my previous diet. But as fate would have it, just before I was about to be released, one of the guards who lost his whole family on one of my Napalm raids sliced my gut open with his ceremonial sword. I bled to death in minutes but had the strength to give him the middle finger as my last farewell. Karma’s a b***h.

     My message to those who are open to my communication is that there are monsters on both sides. But the monsters never believe that they are. I died believing I did my duty, that there are no innocents in war, and to use any means necessary to gain the advantage. Did I feel bad about burning people alive, damn yes, it wounded my soul, but war is hell, and I had a duty to my country and followed the orders I was given.

     The North Vietnamese and the Cong treated their prisoners abysmally, inhumanely, and caused irreparable harm to many of the soldiers they housed. They did monstrous acts, and many POWs were never the same and had a long, hard road ahead, where, for many, home was never the same again. But to the Vietnamese, we were evil giants bent on destroying and dominating their land.

 

Morphine Dreams

 

I dream of vanilla ice cream,

fat circus clowns, and barker sounds:

days sunny, bright, and nights starry light,

of fairy wings and elfish things-

But reality wails in bedridden rails,

as morphine drips with candy lips;

creates this theme of an ice cream dream-

 

Soldier red, soldier blue,

nowhere to run, what can one do-

Bullets fly with a hailing cry,

while in my hole I beg to die-

Rat, tat, tat, Bing, bang, boom,

all is doom, all is gloom-

Soldier red, I’m not yet dead-

Soldier blue, I’m in hell with you-

 

Let reality fade in nightmares wake;

I’d rather dream of ice cream cake-

Of silver lakes and purple skies,

where I can swim, where I can fly-

Don’t wake me up, don’t let me see,

I’m half the man I used to be-

Please don’t make me scream,

just let me dream,

of cotton candy and vanilla ice cream-

……

     We are the immortal ghosts, echoes, ethereal truth sayers. The Chief and the Green Beret nodded, grateful that their stories were heard not only by the dead but by the living attuned to us. They will add to the historical record those truths that were suppressed and ignored. They took their leave and vanished in the wind. We all dispersed and went back to our shattered graves to dream of home and a life that are merely echoes of the past.

 

Whispers in the Wind

shadow dreams

will-o’-wisps

flitter and flutter about

nothing is ever forgotten 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

         

Author's Note

Let's hear you scream