Echo's from Vietnam and beyond

By Dr. Jack Apsche

Published by ePrintedBooks

Copyrights by Dr. Jack Apsche

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including recording, photocopying, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher.

Somewhere near Hill 837 in Vietnam the Republic of in early 1967, cleaning my M-60. I am not sure who the kid in the picture actually is, rumor has it it was me at 18.

Dedication

This book of poems is dedicated the people who have been in my life, who inspired my writing.  You know who you are and if not make something up!

Table of Contents

Copyrights

Dedication

Section One

Section Two

Section Three

Section Four

Section Five

About the Author

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Section One

I Believe

Steam Trails Revisited

The mist blinks thru

The deep green vegetation

The humidity form the month’s monsoon

Creates steam trails

From body heat

My flesh has rotted

In every crevice

Of my skin

And I smell like

Meat left out on

The sidewalk for a

Week in July

I won’t ever get dry

Unless I get wrapped

In a poncho

Tagged

And flown home

For a ceremony of

A select few

Who might attend

And

Attempt to remember

That I once was human

And dreamed

The dreams

Of

The innocent

Walter Cronkite

That’s what I miss

Clean video

Tight shot’s

Close-ups

Walter Cronkite

Drug related

And Vietnam

Hot cities

And Urban guerillas

Fashionable radicalism

Its long gone

Walter Cronkite’s

Body count

Anonymity in number’s

People dying

On the front page

Or Time

Entertainment

For the dinner meals

And empty boots lined up

After Dak To

In the Inquirer

Beat poems

Hip phrases

And

Anonymity in number’s

More body counts

1 miss

Anti-war music

Hot groups

Lost hope

No dope

Kill a slope

Orange joke

Beat poems, man

Where ya been?

It’s all gone now

Just like

Walter Cronkite

Hard to Find

Love poems are hard to find

These days

So I decided to write one

For you

Instead we went to bed

Made love

Rested

And again

The Group

We walk past the wall

And look at the names

Of the dead

We look far away from

Each other

As we don’t know

Who would die

First

If we were

There

Again

The Village

The village was surrounded

We were in an ugly mood

Several men went down

There was no enemy

To be found

We torched the village

An old man climbed

Up on his hooch

To put out the fire

Polly butt stroked

Him across the mouth

As he lay there bleeding

My thoughts raced

But I did my job

Carried out my

M 16 diplomacy

Buried

Where did the

Simplicity of

Childhood go

Where there was

No order

Or

Right or wrong

Learning

Understanding

Kindness

Words were

Just words

Sentences complicated

Responsibilities

Of organized religion

No jesus

Rather vague concepts

And childhood

Memories

Of wonders of

How things were before vague

Concepts of death

Or afterlife

Joe Something

I was in base camp

Black Horse for

A rest, and I

Ran into this guy

From High School

His name was Joe something

He was on shit burning

Detail

We exchange some

Bullshit stories

The stars and stripes

Reported that

A guy named Joe something

Was KIA

Vietnam

Veterans

We walk around Washington

After midnight

Feeling the eerie silence

Of the wall

A grave site

For the dead

A curiosity

For the living

Touching the name

Of someone

We loved

In our way

Of loving

Looking for our

Names on the wall

And silently

Questioning if

We ever left

Life

Living is what we do

In between

With or without

Tomorrow’s expectations

Or

Death is death

Especially without

Living in yesterday

Or in between

Life

Or death

Ramp Gunner

With my feet dangling

Above the treetops

I watched the

Tracer’s dance

In a white schizoid hue

Beneath my feet

I promised God

I would become

A priest

Or a

Saint

That day

After the War

After the war

We sat around,

Smoked marijuana

Got high, and

Talked of

War

We went to college

Joined groups

Got diplomas

Went back into

The world

After the war

We fell in love

Told lies

Made love

Got married

Got divorced

Had babies

Looked for

New lives

And tries

To live

Again

Plastic Men

As a child I

Had little green

Plastic men

Hidden everywhere

I was these green soldier’s

Division commander

A child General Patton

I commanded the special squads

To dangerous missions

That no human could

Hope to complete

I never lost

A neighborhood

Battle

Imagination and

A child’s fantasy

Made it all

So real

The little green men

Never slept

And never died

Green plastic men

Always obedient

Always vigil

Unlike the real men

Who ate

Slept and died

And came home

In green

Plastic bags

Death

Death can surprise

You

When a tracer srikes

Your heat

Prayers don’t delay it

And God can’t stop it

Like flying in from

The Ashau

With a chopper full

Of bodies

Nothing much

Looks human

Anymore

The wind blew a tear from my eye

As I said goodbye

And waited for

My turn

The Captain of the Chess Team

The chess team from

My high school were

Draft exempt

The captain of the team

Loved latin and

Chemistry

He showed off

His wing tip’s

From Father and Son’s

When running to

Class

The captain always

Talked of things

Unknown to me

He kept his pens

In a vinyl pen holder and

Wore his slide rule

In his belt

So her could figure out

His calculous

Problems anywhere

He used to run down

The halls to avoid the

Thugs who might

Break his thick

Glasses again

He never had a girlfriend

Or a fast car

He never saw an F on his

Report card

He never went to I Corps

But he understands

The chemical compounds

Of dioxin

Heroes

Flying above the tree tops

I found

No knowledge

No love

No hate

Only now

There were no

Hero’s there

Only men

Who died

Trying to

Stay alive

Vietnam Diary

Another day

Bouncing betty

Won’t let you

Run away, got the clap

Can’t go back

Hard day, hard on, short time

Long time, any time

Smoke it, snort it, chew it

Getting high

Gonna die

Fall out

Fall in

Load up

Shoot up

Bronze star,

Purple Heart

Land mine

Anytime

AK everyday

Sainpan

Hot sand

Death bed in

Japan

Move out

Move in

Smoke up

Light up

New day

Same day, everywhere

Fuck off, fuck up

Pop off

Bare ass, smoke grass

Laid out, laid in

Die young

Smoke one

Old day, new day, all day

Everyday

Same way

You Slobs

I remember

Waving good-bye

To all the new

Dudes’ comin’

In country

As I was goin’ home

Right

Where everyone

Wants to know

If you killed

Somebody

Back to the world

Where

People don’t

Hire doorgunners

My Father

My father died

When I was four

I knew him

For such a

Short time

Yet

He is still

With me

I can still

Feel him

The love of four

Years

Has lasted

A lifetime

He is there

Protecting

Guiding

And knowing

That i

Am part

Of him

A Man from the Heard

I met this guys who had been

In Vietnam… in some unit

They called the Heard

He could talk you out

Of suicide

You would promise him

Not to kill yourself

Just to have him shut-up

For a second

When this guy

Told me that he got a

Bronze Star

For laying down rapid and

Suppressive fire at

Dak To

I was impressed

When he told me

He got it for using an

M-60 with a broken trigger

I was more impressed

He must ne good at making

Rat-a-ta sounds

They pulled him out of his

Hole at Dak To

To pin on the Bronze Star

This dude didn’t get

To say thank you

When they said,

“get back in your hole, boy”

He gave them the Vietnam salute

“fuck it cause it

Really doesn’t mean nothing”

B Movie

After I came home

From Vietnam

I found my way

Out to my

Father’s grave

In a moment of

B movie drama

I dropped my

Medal’s on his

Grave and

Wept as I drove away

New Years Day

This new year

Brings

Promises

And resolutions

Champagne toats

Dick Clark

Memories of

Guy Lombardo

And his royal Canadians

Endless football

New beginnings

Happy endings

Memories that

Tet follows

New years

Bodies of dead

Marines

Lying side by side

In Hue city

Waiting to be sorted

Out

And a ride home

In a sliver

Box

Happiness

Everybody’s looking for happiness

Like it’s some event

A Porsche

A supermodel

A drag queen

A president

Or ceo

Happiness is not

An event

Or thing

More like

Putting together

Some moments

Of joy

And not hearing

A helicopter

Delaware

Flying into the

Ashau

With a lightning storm

Or tracers from NVA

Weapons

Finding their

Mark

Choppers falling from

The sky

Like wounded

Ducks

With clipped wings

Moving troops

From the Cav and

101st

Into the darkness

Of a prehistoric valley

With moon craters

From days of

B 52 raids dropping

More tonnage

Than in Dresden

Flying in

Nothing special only teen age

Soldiers from

Working class

America

Picking them up

Later

Motionless

Wrapped in filthy

Blood soaked

Ponchos

My Generation

Sometimes I close my

Eyes

And we are all still there

My generation

Lost in the jungles

Of Southeast Asia

Wearing jungle fatigues

Ducking tracers

Bagging bodies

Some

Flying as I did

Never growing older

Whose names

Are on the wall

May still be there

Helicopters around me

That I am

No longer young

Ashau

Picking up

Troopers from

The Cav

Teenage soldiers

Skinny kids with

Bad skin

From jungle

Rot

From the

Ashau

Eyes gazed

No words

One grunt

Had a puppy

Tucked in his shirt

“What is that?”

I said

“Something is coming

Out of here, alive.”

He said.

Trust

I trusted a man

In Delaware

He promised

Support and

A career

He gained a ;pt

Of weight

To avoid the draft

How long can

This man live

Without

A bullet

In his

Head or

Ass?

Fall

Days past

Remembering you

Holding a caterpillars

Setting it free

Together

Listening to each other’s life

Scripts

Driving

In your green VW

Watching the

Leaves fall

As you drive your car

So not to run over the

Leaves

Or interrupt

Autumn

You dodge the

Leaves

Sometimes avoiding

Sometimes alone

Never

Without

Love

Thoughts of Georgia

I walked into a local bar

Sat in the corner

And sipped a beer

Minding my business

A big fat construction

Type guy was loud

Trying to make the

Painted barmaid

He grabbed her

She pushed him

Screaming something about

His little penis

I got up and asked him if he had

A problem

He punched me in the face

And my mouth split and

Poured blood

When I got up

I grabbed a full bottle

Of beer and cracked him

Across his nose

The bottle and his

Nose broke together

He fell down and I

Stomped his head some more

As I ran out the back door

The local police and the MP’s

Arrived

And the barmaid was

Kneeling over his bloody

Fat unconscious body

Beat poem

River schism

Or catechism

Finding love

In a sears catalogue

While lying in a

Waterbed

And watching jeopardy

Answers

Or questions

Watergate

Watershed or

Oliver Wendle Holmes

Getting

Diagnostic surgery

Gynecologist

Finds cancer

Linda Lovelace

Porn star

Performs strange acts

While you eat

A bowl of fruit

Feeling out of place

Like a bowel movement

With no toilet

Paper

Christmas

I remember Christmas

Toy guns

And

Toy soldiers

Warriors

With guns

And swords

Until

Some

Christmas outside

Some nameless

Firebase

Too far for

Santa

And Bob Hope

The Christmas truce

Was a false promise

Amid the smell

Of gunpowder

Eyewitness

The blast blew

Chairs and concrete

Thru the bar

As I was leaving the

Club

There were people

In pieces all over

The street

There was a young guy

Who’s legs were

Blown off

And beautiful women

With a cable

Tsticking out of

Her stomach

I didn’t want to go

Back there

Or dancing

Ever

There is blood on

My airplane ticket

Home

The Light

Waiting for the light

The one at the end of the tunnel;

Promised until

Tet

Saigon and Hue city

In ruins

There was

No light

Only darkness

As dark

As the inside

Of the VC’s

Tunnel’s

And McNamara’s

Promises

NVA

In the jungle rot of war

People die

Another day

There are no peace treaties

Peace symbols

Or peace

People die

It is you or him

You can’t

See him

Hear him m

He is there

Waiting for you

Waiting with

His Ak-47

Pungi sticks bouncing betty

He will get you

If you don’t

Get him

He doesn’t care about

Slogans or

Yankee go home

Make love not war

He wants your short ass

He isn’t interested in

Your flag

Your hometown or

Homeboy

Wife or

God

He wants your ass dead

Or out

He has his God

His farm

His home and

Your GI ass is standing on it

He has met your M16

Your Huey gunship’s

B-52’s and phantoms

And napalm

He has no 1 year tour or deros

His life is this war

And he will get

Your green ass

He has to

He has no-where

Else to go

After the War II

After the war

We were alone

No-one phoned

No-one called

After the war we did not forget

What they don’t want to remember

We talked and confessed

While deaf ears grew older

Quiet and alone

Believing psychedelic prophets

Deerhunters and apocalypses

That were never real

Often lies

We listened

To somebody else’s fantasies

Not mine

After the war

We never looked for

Each other

We looked for ourselves

In the lost and found

In the classified

Unclassified and

Unreal

Unwritten

Often edited

Mostly censored

Unknown

But never

Anonymous

Pittsburgh

The ice storms came

And we froze at 10 below

Waiting

For a bus on fifth avenue

Waiting to go home

Share each other

And a bed

Making love

And resting like

It was Sunday

Life

Living is what we do

In between

With or without

Tomorrow’s expectations’

Or

Death is death especially without

Living in yesterday

Or in between

Life

Or death

Courage

There are times

I

Look thru the

Keyhole

And watch

The distant world

Spread out

Before me

Wondering which cloud

Might block

My view next

If I had courage

I would open

That door

But if I did

I might get

Wet?

Me

I looked for

Myself in movies

And others

And God

Never

Thought that

The ruby slippers

Were on my feet

To take me

Wherever I

Want to go

Without a

Reservations

Hesitating only

For myself

Or

Fear

The Old Man

An old man, with

A white beard, yellow skin

Slant eyes

Wearing a straw hat

Hangs over my bed

At 3am every morning

He doesn’t talk

He lets me see

Him, then disappears

He has chased me

10,000 miles

For many years

And he found me

Hiding in my

Bedroom

Every night

And I wonder

If I really killed

Him

How can he

Visit me

Every night

At 3am?

Pa Turnpike

Endless drives together

From Philly to Pittsburgh

On the turnpike

Passing the shell

That used to be

J&L Steeele

Winding our way

Through the dark

Thick air

Until we saw

The Cathedral

The air smelled like

Sulphor

As the Hare Krishna’s

Danced and

Passed out incense

That smelled

Sweet

Then

As we learned from people

With degrees

To believe

In other’s

Sometimes

In ourselves

The Lesbian

I remember talking to a woman in a bar in 1969

She wasn’t real friendly

But she sure was excited about the

Space landing oon the moon

On the tv above the bar I could hear

David Brinkley talking about the technical skill

It took to land on the moon

“the lunar landing ship is down

on the surface, with four legs evenly touching.”

The woman cheered

All I could think of

Was who died in my old unit today

And how this excited woman

Doesn’t understand

And I put those feelings

Away and I said

“It is hard for me to be excited

About the moon…when 152  people died

this week in Vietnam.”

She said “that’s their fault

For going there.”

And I decided that she must be a lesbian

Cause I ain’t picking her up.

Fiftytwo

52 feels like

28 physically

Still bench press

325

Run far

Almost forever

Ache more

No drugs

No caffeine

Drinking bottled

Water

While aging

Gracefully physically

Seeking wisdom

Yet still

The same

asshole

With no answers

That I was

30 years

Ago

Trooper

The incoming didn’t give

Me any rest

As the darkness was light by

A light show of high explosives

And tracers

It has been 72 hours straight

And the rules of engagement

Seem like a wet dream from

Adolescence

We smell the oil

Burning outside of Bagdad

And their mech units are no match

As the approach to their

Capital is littered with corpses

A litter of burned human remains

Announce that

Your liberators

Are here

Tourists

Nightclub full

Of tourists

Dressed in their

Latest cruise wear

Or silk and polyester

Blends

Trendy dancing

And drinks of

Fruits juices

With bamboo umbrellas

And decorative red maraschino

Cherries

As read as their

Sunburned skin

That seemed painful

Until

The jihad

Bomb exploded

Ending

Their

Vacation

Forth of July

Parades

And fireworks

Celebrate Americas

Birthday

People who

Weren’t marching

When we

Derosed

To no welcome

And the parades

Were marches

Telling us

How wrong we were

Lichenstein

We walked to the princes’ palace

Looked over the alp’s

To Switzerland

We drove our VW

Up the mountain

On a long one-car

Road

The higher we

Climber the smaller

The Rhein looked

The highway looked

Like a small picket fence

We finally reached the snow

I forgot my jacket

As we walked up the

Icy muddy road

Past mountain cattle and

Wooden cabins and

Mountain people in their

Warm gray clothes

We snapped a role of pictures

With our instamatic…

And left

Cold.

Waiting for Movement

Sitting on my patio

On a warm summer evening

Looking across the field

That spread out

Behind my house

Alertly

I am waiting for movement

A bush rustling

From a stray dog

A bird flapping

Its wings

In a tree

Frozen

Waiting for movement

That hasn’t come

In decades

This Guy Al

When I got

Back from Vietnam

I needed some clothes

Cause nothing fit

And I was 2 years

Out of style

I found this

Hip store in

The Levittown

Shopping Center

With a hip name

Mally’s

And there was a hip guy working in there

This guy named Al

He told me that he was a writer and

Had applied to be

A conscientious objector

I told him that was

A good idea

Because he couldn’t

Write if he got his head or ass

Blown off

Perfume

Flying into the sunset

Enforcing curfew

Over the perfume river

“fire em up” the

Pilot yelled

And I watched a family

Treading water

Bobbing in the water

Like and empty

Can of coke

I watched their

Heads explode

Into crimson

Mist

The bodies of red

Blended the river water

Into the sunset

Economy

The murder

Rate is

Rising

And there is

More bad

News for

The economy

AR 15’s are about

500 bucks

And with ammo

You can but

It with your

Next unemployment

check

Atomic Vet

The atomic vet was

Denied benefits

And joined

The agent orange

Vets

And the chemical vets

As a

List of bills

Due for

America

That go

Unpaid

Like my health

Insurance

Money

Money cant

Buy you

Love but

It can pay

For

Viagra

And a long

Delayed

Orgasm

With or

Without

Intimacy

Section Two

I Believe

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"Echo's from Vietnam and beyond"

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About the Author

Jack Apsche is an artist, poet of some sort and a Psychologist.  He is a husband to Joanne, a father to Melissa, Amy, Joe Francis Albert, Pepsi, Berk the Turk and has a  two Grandogs Mini Mitzi and Boscow.

Back to Contents

Table of Contents

Copyrights

Dedication

Section One

Section Two

About the Author

Back to Contents