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DAYS FOR GUY
Joseph Guy LaPointe, Jr.
Conscientious Objector and Combat Medic
was killed in action 2 June 1969
in the Republic of Viet Nam
May 1968
Fort Sam Houston, Texas
You held hands with Kansas City
for too long,
and the Cumberland in Summer
breathed though your lungs
to make Ohio your skin -
so much that
when the government papers came,
confining you to Texas and the Army
your eyes wanted Dayton so much
that they couldn't cry.
Still, you sang.
You said Canada
was foreign to you,
and Nova Scotia ran Autumn
in your veins.
You wouldn't turn
North to Freedom.
27 August 1968
Three-day Pass
Leaving San Antonio
we rode north to Dallas,
and on that road,
drinking wine, you named the birds,
the plants, the small animals
for me-- I listened
as you read the land,
and when you sang,
it was the same:
your gentle love
sang in your voice and strumming hands.
Later, when you called
all the way from Dallas
to your pregnant wife
your eyes were gone to Dayton
in Ohio, watching her grow.
You were too innocent
for honesty.
4 November 1968
Oakland Army Depot
Beyond the green warehouse
the politician's words that kill
and flag that files an unkept promise
brushed on your skin.
The touch was lost.
America was not theirs
it was not there.
We followed the taped red line
and left our baggage in the dark.
November 1968
San Francisco AWOL
In that stolen time
we stood on Ocean Beach
while you taught me
other songs to sing,
saying you wouldn't mind
the coming year--
next Fall would be here soon.
I didn't want to take you
from that place where you stood
throwing stones at the sky,
but words were raging
from the capitals of the world
and the killing time was coming.
12 November 1968
Bien Hoa, RVN
Leaning on the sandbags
that cased the wooden and
wire-screened hooch
beside the bomber's locking radar station
we read each other's orders,
smoking.
They were all words and numbers then,
and we spoke only of memories.
I copied your address
and lost it.
2 June 1969
Hue, RVN
I watched the wide river
from by bunker top
while the pric 25
stoned my radio ears
telling me in static rasps
that a dying time was near--
I thought it was my own.
Tomorrow
we would relieve
the Second
of the Seventeenth Cavalry.
It was all words
and numbers.
October 1969
America
In Kansas, the wheat and corn
have been harvested, shipped and sold,
the wild geese are escaped South
and soon the snows will cover
the Dakotas and Wyoming.
I want to hear you
sing this Winter coming on.
The sun burns southward.
Voices stall through the capitals
and fade in the air--
but in America
who is left to name
those small animals
moving through the snow,
or tell the histories
of each brittle weed
standing frozen in the wind?
Frank B. Smith - Medic
İOctober 5, 1969
Phong Dien, RVN
snfsmith@brawleyonline.com
I had a guitar over there and played too.
We spent many hours together
playing and exchanging songs.
His favorite song was the Beatles "Blackbird"
RandyTheDJ on 06/24/98 08:07 PM
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