Out of the horror there rises a musical ache
that is beautiful . . . —James Wright
Monkey
… —an excerpt
5
There is a hill.
Men run top hill.
Men take hill.
Give hill to man.
Me and my monkey
and me and my monkey
my Vietnamese monkey
my little brown monkey
came with me
to Guam and Hawaii
in Ohio he saw
my people he
jumped on my daddy
he slipped into mother
he baptized my sister
he's my little brown monkey
he came here from heaven
to give me his spirit imagine
my monkey my beautiful
monkey he saved me lifted
me above the punji
sticks above the mines
above the ground burning
above the dead above
the living above the
wounded dying the wounded
dying.
Men take hill away from smaller men.
Men take hill and give to fatter man.
Men take hill. Hill has number.
Men run up hill. Run down.
.
by Bruce Weigl
from Unaccustomed Mercy —Soldier Poets of the Vietnam War
Texas Tech University Press, 1989
.