The Vietnam Memorial on the Mall
Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem
If I had been a sculptor way back when,
The monument that I might well have sketched
To win the contest with clean paper, pen
And honesty would not have been farfetched
As names, names, names on granite carved in black.
I think I might have aimed for figures hunched
In lust, white soldier, gook upon her back,
His hardened gun inside her, as he punched
His way to his explosion, deep, Deep, DEEP;
And clouds of Agent Orange across the fields,
The herbicide as sculpted mist to creep
To crop destruction, deathly paddy yields.
To keep the meaning of the conflict fresh
Stone napalm would expose a girl’s burned flesh.
~ Phillip Whidden