DOCUMENTARY OF A WAR

In the name of the

        Father

        and of the Son

                     and of the

       Etc.

Fire.

Women as women will trying to save

As much as can be saved

         of pots and clothing

             We cannot leave

         Do not make us leave

             our ancestors

to a prayerless village

Children

give us this day

a little boy wonderingly watching

  a tired sweaty doctor

       tie up his stump

             Leave him enough for a

   crutch!

He will grow up   It takes such an awful lot

    to kill the human

Tweny eight years of death produced

these twenty year olds dying in the swamps and paddies

our daily bread

             alphabet books lie shattered among the dry fields

         the battle of toxic chemicals and bee sting

             great river leeches on our naked backs

         stiff twisted faces

      with pieces of paper tied

    to an arm

         or a leg

                                                                 or a neck

      or whatever there is left

              family:

    village:

    cause of death:

       male? female?

       single?  married?

             no matter

   non bereaved

    one cannot grieve indefinitely

And forgive us

   tired GI faces

              dogged fear

                                                              that jumps at every

   whisper of the bush

    I just want to get out of here

    It’s you or they get killed

              remember that, men.

                It’s I or they

Our trespasses

  a village sweep

     armed with rifles and

        antiseptic spray

O my dear, O my dear young girl

           dirty and covered with lice

  and resigned to being raped

     But we are civilized

      We have R & R.

The Star and Two Colors

Martial music

           repository of ideology

        One can riot only where

     death is not so near

         or so immediately vivid

         where a plastic bag over the face    can save us from crying                                                                   the senseless tears

    the bomb tears

Imperialism shall not win

Hallowed be thy name

              Johnson: “American restraint...”

         napalm acids anti-personnel bombs B. 52

     and the medieval rock

Thy kingdom come

Imperialist evil shall not prevail

         Hear, mga papet ng Amerika!

I only want to understand

                      but thy will be done

Why are dirty bloodied bodies

       being tossed into these shallow graves

          beardless faces uncomprehendingly in pain

     or burning draft cards

or themselves

                            or turning to flowers and LSD

                                        or running the rat race of the cities

On earth

         but why is cynicism idealism unrealized

As it is in heaven

      I do not remember the exotic names

             of the great encounters

        Flash!  Allies suffer reverse

                Headline: 407 Vietcong killed

     In Sicily an earthquake

 left  Montevago mourning

400 dead

After a while the eternal gunshots

  become monotonous

   Lord I just want to get out of here

   It’s I or they

We must evolve some more

                              some more

   we simply must dont you see

             This over a cup of coffee

     Excited over her first cigarette

      I see no other hope

      the two are irreconcilable

   War and Peace?

    Now dont be smart

    Heaven and Earth?

Lord all I want is

      Aw let me fornicate in peace

National Liberation Front

          I am expendable An old man

But I can still smile for your camera sir

Yes I have many stories

       but they are all the same

Like droppings of some

       archaic flying reptile

             the bombs fell

       on the leprosarium

      God I sweated infinities

                 Sewing on skin and muscle

                 and they were mutely grateful

                   the noseless and the lipless faces

             sweating in the stubble fields

           stubble summer autumn winter and spring

                            it makes no difference now

how the fingers dissappeared

         how the body became one mass of wounds

Amen.

-  Ma. Lorena Barros
   Philippine Collegian, April 3, 1968