Blackheart
by Lawrence T. O'Neill
I met Mr. lawrence O'Neill at a "C" 4/3 reunion in Vegas. We have been cooresponding sense. Larry has produced a book of his poems. I don't think you can buy the book and I suspect he is selective when giving it away. I love Larry's poetry. The only way to contact Larry is by standard mail. I told him in a letter that I was posting some of his poems on my website. If he writes and tells me to stop I will but until then I will show you what a grunt writes. I like his poems.
Prisoner of life
I was killed in Vietnamnot by weapons but from within
and I walk like a long dead zombie
Watching my flesh fall away
I remember my illness
a slow anger of cancer
not the body but of the soul
I ride the dead reapers horse
like a hussar on the battlefield
My nostrils fill with stink
not from the fight but its cause
I am forever locked in darkness
I am like K. dead in life
Not in submission but by lust
I search for these new pleasures
singing bacchanal hymns
I recreate the prime mover
not a solitary religion but a sect
I walk like a virgin of Isis
The VA says i am dying of skin dementia
not from parasites but from dementia praecox
and they wrapped me like a mommied king
Like a carcass used in an experiment
I told them remold in plastic surgery
I was killed in Vietnam
now i am a descendant of Frankenstein
Tanka O
I have a black heart
after all these years
I have an ach in my soul
I try to understand the feeling
I don't understand the feeling ...
In the Pagoda of Chu
In the Pagota of Chu,
I watched the children praying,
In a Bamboo hut in Chu Lai province.
They were praising God in a different tongue.
And I thought, what faith these people have!
I knelt down and prayed with them,
and I felt the fear lift off me,
and I felt the hope fill in me
I thought about God and his mercy
in the Pagoda of Chu