Forty Years

Some time around the middle of June 1970 I got a wild hair stuck up my butt. amercia's invasion of Vietnam was in full swing and I knew my number was about to come up and so being one of those brain washed patriotic fools I decided to join up.
I was a green still wet behind the ears boy and did I ever have a lot to learn. Basic Training whipped my ass. The drill sergeant and I just never did see eye to eye. So needless to say I spent lots of time doing KP. But finally Basic was over and then I was off to AIT. My MOS was originally to be Broadcasting but some how I ended up training for the Military Police. Actually everything went well though AIT and I graduated as a PFC.
I was off to Fitzsimmons General Hospital in Aurora Colorado. Was I ever in for a shock. Fitzsimmons was an amputee hospital. Better said it was a place where the Army dumped soldiers that were torn apart. I still recall the empty eyes. The young empty guys with the hollow empty eyes.

Yes, Its Me Ben

In The Land Of I

IPod, UPod, We AllPod
Want It
Need It
Gotta Have It
Living In The Land
Of
Greed
They Have It
I Want It
I Need It
IPod
UPod
We AllPod

A Place

There's a place, I go
When my spirits
lay low
When the light dims
within my soul
A place I sit to ponder
To replay the circle
plow things up and under
from the depths of my mind
A place to sit in
silence
Where I escape the violence
of life
Through dreams of
tranquility
A place where life's
troubles
lives woes
drift slowly away
from the smoke of my angers
fire
jSweptson

The Best Of Intentions

I have seen the sea of stars and bars
Flapping, Snapping on the black topped highways
The glow of candles so meaningfully burning
throughout the night
Who's numbers dwarf the stars
in the dark of night
I've heard the moans and cries
chorused by tears that fall as monsoons rains
to the ready swollen rivers of anguish
I've walked down those green rolling valleys
that lay thickly filled with white crosses
That stand sentinel
What of these will speak for me
who among them
Has such powers to breathe life
back into this box
of rattling bones
What glue might they conjure
to piece together my broken soul
Oh! Speak to me shout to my ears
for I so know the answer
For all the spent good intentions
soon become arcade
Once the coin drops through the slot
the show is soon forgotten
Now once again they speak of war
The line drawn through its sand
again our armour stands ready
our faces turned towards
the winds of war
jSweptson

My Side Of Town

On my side of town people drive around in those behemoth SUV'S (STUPID UNIVERSESIZE VEHICLES) you know the type that needs its own zip code. Of course when one's home is the size of Texas anything smaller would look out of place. Its a neighborhood where keeping up with the Jones is a full time job. Yes, on my side of town were SOOOOOOO IMPORTANTTTTTT.

Saturday Morning's

April has almost slipped from within my grasp. Though its only half finished it appears as the glass half empty. Its a quite morning as I sit here listening to the silence strange how when one sits and just listens how much the silence becomes filled with much more than silence.