Hanoi Hannah
(Yusef
Komunyakaa, 1947 - )
Ray
Charles! His voice
calls
from waist-high grass,
&
we duck behind gray sandbags.
“Hello,
Soul Brothers. Yeah,
Georgia’s
also on my mind.”
Flares
bloom over the trees.
“Here’s
Hannah again.
Let’s
see if we can’t
light
her goddamn fuse
this
time.” Artillery
shells
carve a white arc
against
dusk. Her voice rises
from
a hedgerow on our left.
“It’s
Saturday night in the States.
Guess
what your woman’s doing tonight.
I
think I’ll let Tina Turner
Tell
you, you homesick GIs.”
Howitzers
buck like a herd
of
horses behind concertina.
“You
know you’re dead men,
don’t
you? You’re dead
as
King today in Memphis.
Boys,
you’re surrounded by
General
Tran Do’s division.”
Her
knife-edge song cuts
Deep
as a snipers bullet.
“Soul
Brothers, what are you dying for?”
We
lay down a white-klieg
trail
of tracers. Phantom jets
fan
out over the trees.
Artillery
fire zeros in.
Her
voice grows flesh
&
we can see her falling
into
words, a bleeding flower
no
one knows the true name for.
“You’re
lousy shots, GIs.”
Her
laughter floats up
as
though the airways are
buried
under our feet.
Reading Hanoi Hannah, I’m reminded of my own time when the songs had to be played over and over again, burning a track in my memory, accompanied by a video of current events recording in real time, when my emotion was my heart and I burst to express it, not just to tell of it, and it’s the music that relives itself in the poor attempt of my words.
My poem for this post is a piece I wrote many years ago when I was a very young sailor being ferried in an era of special song.
1972. Six month ANZUK deployments ‘up top’. Vietnam was still on but winding down; for us, anyway. The daily routine at sea was relaxed; shorts and a pair of sandals; lazy days; good days; we looked forward to port visits.
70’s at Sea
Those were the days
of suede leather coats
beneath brown fur collars,
wine colored burgundy suits
in a page boy style,
The Carpenters on reel to reel,
‘Such a feeling
coming over me,
there’s won-der
in most every-thing
I see’
Santana
in a deserted
dark bar
on a road
between Chong Peng & Nee Soon,
lonely,
lonely for companionship,
ceiling fans in nondescript rooms
on sultry
tropical nights,
days of blue at sea,
blue sky
with silent vapour trails of B-52’s
departing, closing VietNam,
hot days,
lifeless in the South China Sea,
asleep on a Burbank fender
X-deck,
Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazlewood
‘Some velvet
morning ……
when I'm straight
I'm gonna open up
your gate
and maybe tell you
'bout Phaedra
and how she gave
me life
and how she made
it in ………’
big tall negroes
dressed
in full length leather coats,
soft grey
black
& wide-brimmed hats
hand slapping
on street corners in Wanchai,
beautiful asian bar-girls,
laughing chatty,
you crazy,
them mens crazy,
spend too long in the jungle,
beer bourbon & coke
sick on sour whiskey
staggering back on board,
dreams of home & white young girls
who care,
The Sandpipers ‘Come Saturday Morning’
to role play with Liza Minelli
over & over again,
hot days in boiler room air-locks,
breath taken away
with the dry steam heat, ‘flowers
growing on the
hill,
dragonflies
& daffodils,
learn from us
very much,
look at us
but do not
touch,
Phaedra is my
name ………..’
taken away by the dry steam heat.
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