— unfinished latrine graffiti I look straight ahead without seeing. I know if I had the eyes I could see the jungle and Charlie coming, the quarter moon that’s out there somewhere hiding behind the blackness, fields, tree lines, horizon, river, and beyond. Somewhere out there is the “Demilitarized” Zone and KILL Outlaw Radio, and North Vietnam and the world. I look up at the stars and realize all those planets are orbiting around up there, and beyond them is more of the same, and beyond that, out into a space that pitiful man couldn’t begin to fathom. How can it be that of all those stars and suns and moons and galaxies and solar systems that we’re the only place where there is a recognizable life form? God! Life should be sacred. Human life should be revered. It is the ultimate cosmic miracle. Instead, what do we want to do? We want to kill it. Is that fucked up or what? I see it all so clearly through my black beauty sleep, through my Dexamil night eyes.
