Often at night I watched them in a circle of flashlights,
one minute banging an old guitar, sucking harmonicas,
keeping time with the toes of their jungle boots,
singing protest songs, the latest Beatles tunes,
then back from checking the wire, found them
laying in stupors around the hookah pipe,
like small boys finally worn down at the end
of an overnight back in The World
Charlie was always out there waiting,
sorely wanting us out of his country
Old man of the squad I stood watch
with my M-16, bowie knife and grenades
I find myself still singing the lines of those songs
fifty years gone
driving late at night over the broken streets
of my childhood city:
“I heard the the news today oh boy…”
“I ain’t no senator’s son…”
“We gotta get outta this place…”
burned on the scratchy cd’s of my brain
“Oh say can you see,” never sounded the same