Laos

[myredshoes]

history come to life this morning

with a vengence without warning

hidden seed in sunlit field

little hands reap heavy yield

wealth and power beyond measure

fill the world with buried treasure

living in a war museum

moving to the mausoleum

 

daughter digging in the side yard

stupid little yellow retard

do you hear her mother{censored}er

from Virginia from your chopper

nonsense sing-song ends in keening

covered by the rotor thump

understand she's far beneath you

waving ragged bloody stump

not your war you weren't part of it

you were just a young man starting out

still bombing Laos

 

swing the golf club mother{censored}er

dumb and wild as all the others

stroke of pen to start the skirmish

leave the maimed unborn to perish

scatter balls of blood and blindness

hurry home to catch the game

life so cheap it's almost kindness

mercy in a shallow grave

not your war you're not part of it

you are just an old man flying south

still bombing Laos

[blue2blue]

Strong stuff. There's not a lot of development, here, but we do see the protagonist in several phases of his life.

 

But he's really a cypher, even though the refrain is a first person expression. We see him bombing Laos (presumably during the "Secret War") and we see him years later, playing golf. There's a lot of potential energy implicit in that contrast -- but it's not really focused, except maybe to suggest that instant kharma is not always all that quick to work...

[rsadasiv]

Strong stuff. There's not a lot of development, here, but we do see the protagonist in several phases of his life. But he's really a cypher, even though the refrain is a first person expression. We see him bombing Laos (presumably during the "Secret War") and we see him years later, playing golf. There's a lot of potential energy implicit in that contrast -- but it's not really focused, except maybe to suggest that instant kharma is not always all that quick to work...

 

+1. PTS is ugly stuff and very relevant today. On an unrelated note, when I was about 13 "Holiday in Cambodia" was one of my favorite songs. This past winter I saw a kid shoveling snow in a DK t-shirt and the sight of that logo after so many years made me laugh.

[myredshoes]

My thinking was that the protagonist is simply a taxpayer. I had woke up to this after reading a few weeks ago at the laundrymat a piece on the ongoing continual accidental excavation of cluster-bombs in Laos and the difficulty they have trying to get financing to help clear this up. So it's become the usual Quakers With Tractors type of mine-clearing operation.

So, anyway, I was thinking that all of U.S. are still bombing Laos, it is only the leaders that change, grow, age, move on. Our face, our impact remains the same in Laos. I had an idea to include links to clusterbomb sites related to Laos and to current conflict but have two children and am about to acquire a third and work and writing and have found an electric bass player to spend my weekends with so as usual barely have time to knock the lyric out.

Thank you so much for your comments.

[Michael Blue]

Wow, strong stuff, indeed! I, too, thought it was stages in a Vet's life, you may want to add a phrase regarding the taxpayer issue if you want to highlight it.

 

"Mercy in a shallow grave" is one of THE coolest 1-liners I've ever read...That's title-track stuff, right there!

 

I'd love to hear the music for this...

[myredshoes]

I've dropped the "I'm" from the last line of the chorus but am posting from the public library which will permit me to do almost nothing here. Edit function does not work, probably because some of the language in the piece cannot be re-uploaded from here.

Some day I will get another computer but that is way down low on my list of things to do.

 

Last line in chorus now reads simply "still bombing Laos"...

 

Intro: (begins with "history come to life...")

C/// B///

F/// E///

 

(repeats 4 times)

 

Verses 1&2: (begin with :daughter digging..." and "swing the golf club...")

A/// C///

G/// F#///

(repeats 4 times)

 

Chorus: (begins with "not your war...")

A///////

C/////// D

G//A

Written on guitar in open D, what my guitarist friend Sammy smirkingly calls "tuned to Bruce".

[blue2blue]

My thinking was that the protagonist is simply a taxpayer. I had woke up to this after reading a few weeks ago at the laundrymat a piece on the ongoing continual accidental excavation of cluster-bombs in Laos and the difficulty they have trying to get financing to help clear this up. So it's become the usual Quakers With Tractors type of mine-clearing operation. So, anyway, I was thinking that all of U.S. are still bombing Laos, it is only the leaders that change, grow, age, move on. Our face, our impact remains the same in Laos. I had an idea to include links to clusterbomb sites related to Laos and to current conflict but have two children and am about to acquire a third and work and writing and have found an electric bass player to spend my weekends with so as usual barely have time to knock the lyric out. Thank you so much for your comments.

Ah... maybe I should have re-read more carefuly... I didn't get that.

 

Yeah... cluster bombs and land mines... the gifts that keep on killing...

 

 

[myredshoes]

Well, no; you shouldn't have to re-read more carefully...

 

I seem to have this need to write and try to communicate in this way and I have much room to grow.

I think a readers' failure to understand the piece is usually the writer's problem.

I like that this is a good place to work on this problem. Thanks.

[rsadasiv]

 

I think a readers' failure to understand the piece is usually the writer's problem.

 

 

Too few writers understand this - the customer is always right.

[Michael Blue]

Too few writers understand this - the customer is always right.

 

Unfortunately, that is usually the case. Look at it this way; who is your market/audience? Who are you trying to reach? If they can't understand your point, you need to re-word it.