Night Sounds Gnaw For Decades Survivor Days Poem by Terence George Craddock (Spectral Images and Images Of Light)

sentries are we who hear
are haunted by shrill sounds
sounds we heard sounds

nights in jungle line cam masks
fear rank heat sweats insects
in nights crawl drag never ends

as we lay in frag illusions
safe behind wired claymores
we laid in killing grounds

as silent as combat night prayers
black clothed crawled flesh shadows
into embrace welcome waiting mines

fan teethed fan-shaped are fury patterns
steel balls arc in 60-degree horizontals
at a casualty radius instant to 100 meters

overlapping optimum effective ranges
primed 50 meter multiple kill zones
guard defense stealth our fixed mortars

tripped claymores roared aim welcomes
each 700 steel spheres direction frag fixed
tripwire released rains into killing zones

eardrums ring eyes sight red dance lines
tracer spews forth cutting night ribbons
as GPMGs sweep prepared cut fire lines

M16s rise up firing 20 round magazines
dancing on full automatic flash eliminators
flame anger fire as night vision lost sights

contact probe rips into three VC souls shreds
instant youth terminated on defensive wires
a fourth is gut shot agony yards slow crawls

fire will flame burn his last agonized hours
in darkness hear dying stomach bled pleas
stillness but for bark cough his death rattles

each breath night paced apart in long seconds
silence silence silence weighted wake nerves
terror enfolds nightmare gasps repeat silences

each breath an audience in ambush set chills
this human boy alone in darkness agony dies
impossible seconds minutes drip death hours

none may crawl out of safety hidden jungle trenches
none may crawl past staked triple concertina defense wires
none may listen endless seconds stretching long hours

but they pray his suffering soon will his life wounds
bleed out, to end this nightmare, their nerves slays
these night sounds gnaw for decades survivor days


Copyright © Terence George Craddock