John Samuel Tieman: Alert

who would have thought it could go on so long
like when it’s late at night or driving
or just filling the finch feeder

the feel of The Nam
but not so much the incoming or how to tear
down an M-16 or stuff like shooting an azimuth

but a night in a bunker when we were
kids in fatigues getting high
listening to Hendrix and the cassette stops

and we just sit for half an hour
till someone asks for a light
who would have thought that silence survives

near fifty years more vivid than the memory
of a yellow alert or Nguyen with the amputated leg

Copyright 2018 John Samuel Tieman