Season In The Sun
by Gary Jacobson
I’ve spent my season in the sun
defending communism’s threat with trusty gun.
I’ve felt hot fingers of death to my being assaultive,
Hoped jungle heat, monsoons’n Charley to survive.
Prayed on the other side of the pond
To come out alive.
I've forged a brother’s bond
Fought for life on the run
Felt the life in me dying in my season in the sun
Now left hollow and bereft...

Now the war has just begun
Filling an empty soul with feelings none...
War the great oxymoron
Where naive emotions lay in wisdom long abandoned
Innocence of a lamb lost in killing surrendered
Embroiled in murderous war coldly indiscreet
Childhood senses fraught with man’s withering beat
Just babes lost in jungled wood
Forever lost in hatreds raucous pursuit of good.

Now I live with one foot firmly planted in today
The other imbedded in “season in the sun” yesterday
With demons still fighting the fray
Battles played out in every dark night comes fright.
Even in the light of day
Where olde warriors with olde enemies sway
Between two worlds stray...

I’ve lived through a season of acid rain
Felt in my gut the devil’s pain.
Once blood was on the moon and stars
In a world of different meaning
Before me now in luminous death shone careening.
I still look at them peaceful now, wondering...
Can from moonlit sun Charley still see
Hiding in ambush kill me...
Yes, I knew intimately the killing moon uncouth.
Known long ago in “the world” of callow youth.
Isn’t it still the same?

Clueless now, are they who’ve not held fading life
In sweating hands
When death was the order rife.
They’ve not felt contentious stanzas refrain
Still naive without warriors grief and blame
Safe in sheltered abode from hatreds cankered disdain
Safe from a “season in the sun” hell can bestow...
I’ve walked where every step might be my last.
I've lived in a world they’ll never know...

Thank God!

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