July 4th And Jungle Dreams Tanka Poem by Chen-ou Liu

inspired by Spike Lee's "Da 5 Bloods" and written for Black Vietnam Veterans

July 4th
crossed out on his calendar...
jungle dreams
erupt like fireworks
through his war-torn mind

Note: Spike Lee closes "Da 5 Bloods" with a quote from a speech Martin Luther King made the year before he died, in which King quotes Langston Hughes:

O, yes
I say it plain
America never was America to me
And yet I swear this oath—
America will be!