Michael Frizell writes of Vietnam and the father who was there.
—
Watching Apocalypse Now
He spoke of the ‘Nam only when drinking,
and he rarely drank.
Hissing, “It was like this.
Just goddamn like this,”
his python hand strikes
and grips my tricep.
My father forces me to watch.
The VCR uncoils
muttering with forked tongue
“This is the end my friend,”
as Kurtz posits piety, a slithering
god to the godless.
Willard, sent to stop him,
succumbs to constriction,
“Riding the snake to the ancient lake,
its skin old and cold.”
Unblinking, I start to cry
as Willard’s machete charms
the snake-god man
into thick springs
of curving flesh
peeling and pulsing
blood, and still he hacks.
He releases me
when mom shouts something.
Filled with liquid,
my father’s predator eyes
perceive the flickering soldier
and living room
as memories hiss and coil.
***
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