Category: Veterans

A Sunday Night Poem: Passages along with random thoughts about nothing important 2248/080617


The Peppermint Lounge, Montego Bay, 1962
By Gordon Kuhn copyright 08.06.2017
all rights reserved.

There once was a whore house in Montego Bay
Where $2 bought a pitcher of beer and 5 got you a lay
There bronze skinned ladies with loose dresses would sway
with the music until the break of day
Never letting the customers stray too far away
Ah, the booze was cheap and the ladies kept their smiles
And we never once shared our private trials
But laughed and danced and drank the night away
Until dawns’ light broke the fragile spell
When we went back to the ships with memories to tell
Our youthful hunger for rowdy times and cheap romance sated
To the ships where our rifles and ammo near our packs silently waited.

Catatonic in Milwaukee


Stiffness of mind can be a problem and should be noted to tend along with a great deal of anger. I deal with anger. I have problems with anger. I can be very un-nice with anger when it overtakes me and lately it has been  near me too much. I think it is just that the world is moving at such a strange pace and what I hope for is not actually happening but the reverse is. Maybe that  holds true for you as well. In any case being catatonic would be a problem not only in Milwaukee but in Bradenton  as well.

I wonder if people can really change or is it just backwash that we get when we think we changed and then something happens that drags us back into all the same shit. I don’t know. I just known that when looking at my life I can see too many mistakes.

Its a new day and hopefully a day where anger doesn’t creep in to my life or yours.

Oh, and I have never been in Milwaukee but I understand they brew a very fine beer there.

 

Battle Flag


Battle Flag

 

The battle flag sudden snapped and swung up to fly in the wind

Above the post on the hill that even God had not known about back then

On a hot and sticky day where boys waited amid the baking heat

All seemed to stand still in the sudden roar of quiet to those there that day

Broken by the Sergeant’s sudden shout of “guns up!” that tore the silence apart

Rifles swung up then their muzzles pointed out and down across the clearing

Where men of difference moved so quiet in the sea of grass

Then, with hearts beating hard in all the chests of those there that hour and day

Searing rounds were sent out for the human shearing

A burst returned ripped holes in the flag that flew in the wind

Blood and mud spattered, its fabric so worn and so thin

That flew above boys that day sudden turned into men

It snapped and swung up to fly in the wind

Above the post on the hill that no one, not even God knew about back then.                

6/10/13 edited 12/22/2016

FRIENDSHIPS, WONDERS, BAGPIPES, AND WHO’S ON FIRST


A friend called and asked Jan and I out to dinner. It was fun. Jan and I have not seen them in a long time.

Jean and Mike! We went to a Mexican restaurant locally (like where else would we go? oh, just thought we’d pop off in a commercial jet and wing our way to California…God help us…and get Mexican fast food) where we had eaten before. Personally I think it is all made up and kept in the fridge (a lot of restaurants do that) and just pop it in the micro when someone comes along and orders it. Anyway, it was good. I brought home my leftovers in a foam type package and we left it on the table inside the front door. Bet you are wondering where it is tonight and no I didn’t eat it.

Anyway, it was a surprise and welcome one but I am a bit of an anti-social person and I hate crowds and I always feel uncomfortable in such situations. (This morning I met with a group of fellow vets and they sang happy birthday to me. Yep. Pure torture.) On the one hand I want and welcome the attention and on the other it is like telling me that I just walked through a patch of poison ivy. I think that is part of my self-destructive nature like forgetting it was my month to buy donuts for my vet group because it was my birthday month…..hey, why doesn’t the group by the donuts for the person having the birthday and not the reverse.

I would think that is the way it should be, but I guess it all works out in the end. One of the vets there this morning was in a unit in Vietnam that suffered the most casualties of the war. In one engagement they had over 300 casualties. I find it amazing to be in the company of such men as he.
In other interesting news facts, I came across a veterans art studio in St. Petersburg. They are doing an open house on September 16. There is to be a band there, other artists, and me. I’ve been invited to do a book signing. So now the mad rush is on to complete and print the first of two books in a series regarding a true crime event. I managed to get a cover done for the book. It only took me three days. I only lost 12 versions of the artwork to the monster hiding in my computer that probably ate the damn things. When I reported my problems to the software manager/owner/developer I was informed that no one ever from the time that God made Adam had ever reported having any difficulty with their software. I guess, in a way, that was a polite way of being told, “you’re stupid.”