Tag: #vietnam

many vietmans

a day without contact, 

perhaps it’s really passed

two, three… many vietnams. 

now detente, 

defcon four, defcon five

cooled down conflict. digging trenches.

trying to stay alive

love is unconditional, but trust can be lost

a provisional impasse that can’t last

defcon three, defcon two

don’t turn the dial to first

but good souls have forgiven worse

this was the beginning of the lost weekend. a two month long weekend. i was in the depths of my postdiagnosis identity crisis. i suspect i was insufferable. my diary entries were long and messy.

all that’s left is our dismal materiel

the first time i read the word materiel was in a christopher hitchens book, probably the one about kissenger, agent orange, the vietnam war and all that vile evil stuff. i thought it was a typo. it was only when i encountered it for a third time i actually looked it up and learned, for the billionth time, that there is much more that i do not know than there is that i know.

fun fact: in a million years, even if all my banal writings are somehow preserved, only very specialist historians would be able to understand any of it due to the shift in meaning of language over time. i may as well be writing in hieroglyphics. and even if language stayed the same, frames of reference change. in a million years, nobody will be living in a world inhabited by the characters of the 21st century. even liz truss will be forgotten! hopefully the good creatures of earth will still have lettuce though.