Jim Moore

 

Major Moore isn't any more

As he said

Sitting in the Buddha Garden.

Our C.O. 529th MI Company

Fort Hood, Texas

Just off Tank Destroyer Boulevard

And he was our King.

One time, years later, when I went to Thailand

Leaving the airport and flowers everywhere

My cab driver said "It’s the King's Birthday!"

And I felt fine like I was in Fredonia

A comic opera country but with Emerald Buddha

And Jade Buddha and Golden Buddha

And thought of old Major Moore and how

Something had happened to him

When he was in Thailand back then.

Liason to the Air Force

Helping them discover just what 50 miles

Of the Ho Chi Minh trail that they would obliterate that day.

Major Moore was a West Point man

And a "I don't wear the ring, anymore." man

Who came back from Thailand with "Pat"

Whose real name was something like Pattypat Pattypat.

And who knows what happened it was

Anna and the King of Siam only backward

And she shimmered there in Texas

As he addressed us.

"Men," he said. "Men, I feel that I am

As good as any of you."  And paused.

"And that you are as good as me."

And waved his hand at Sergeant Gonzalez

Who said "Company!   Dismissed!"

In a wry baritone.   One year to retirement.

"Wait," Major Moore said.

"Men, I bought ten copies of this book

"Stranger in a Strange Land" and they'll

Be in the orderly room and I'd like each of you

to read it. And think about it.  Dismissed!"

What happened is this.

Our XO was Lieutenant Hanson

A ROTC man from Texas

And a snake.

June in the Buddha Garden.

"Major Moore is no more," Jim Moore said.

Disgraced. Dismissed. Branded.

"Have you ever read Vonnegut?"

And he was gone to -- really -- Fawn Grove Pa.

Where he and Pat had a few kids

And he pondered "The Strawberry Alarm Clock"

And never killed himself.

Lieutenant Hanson was also gone.

Within three months.

During a field exercise someone set up his tent

Right over a nest of copperheads

And he blew off his foot trying to shoot them.

Don't look at me. I didn't do it.

Ara Killijian

 

Ara Killijian read William Saroyan

But nobody ever caught him.

"Just a book I have."

We all need our secrets -- or needed anyway

Stuck there between the First Cav

(Napalm in the morning!)

And the 2nd Armored Division --

Actually commanded by George Patton Jr.

So we understood when Ara went crazy.

And walked around everywhere

Arms outstretched like the crucified Christ

Asking everybody "What is the number one?"

It was, at least, original but

He would get in your way

When you were, for example, smoking

In the Buddha garden thoughtfully provided

by Major Moore.  Buddhas looted from who cares.

"What is the number one?"

"Shut the hell up, Killijian. Take it someplace else.”

So we were somewhat startled when

He jumped off the top of the barracks

And got killed.

"He really was crazy," we said.

And I remember Jim Linden said

"I wonder what the number one really is?"

Flicked his cigarette to the ground

And went to the movies.

 

Fort Dix

"You can go to the movies in groups of six."

The old sergeant says. I am at Fort Dix

Just after basic. A General Alarm:

Fort Dix is overrun by guys back from Vietnam.

"What crap," I thought. And walked on down the hill.

The army says "Don't do this." I say "I will."

Go with one other. Some guy named Sam.

Who tells me he can't wait to go to Vietnam.

From some town in Ohio. Maybe Martins Ferry.

At least I hope. Man I am very

Interested to see what I can see. Strange days.

I would see what I could see anyways!

I don't know what the hell I mean by this

Something about Fate. Whatever this THIS is.

New to me and caught up... and here am I.

From Here to Eternity crossed with Catcher in the Rye

Unreal just then so I go… why ever tarry?

Go with a nitwit from Ohio to see "Dirty Harry."

And slump up from my seat in my most insouciant manner

To stand ironically for the Star Spangled Banner.

The audience --Jesus Christ-- all stoned or drunk

They cheer and cheer. "Do you feel lucky, punk?"

I don't. Leave. Go back and lie in my bunk.

Asking myself all night: "Do you feel lucky, do you feel lucky

 

...Punk?"

Where Are You Now Charlie Solomon?

 

Dear Charlie,

Last night I dreamed that you were dead

Which you won’t mind since I haven’t heard of you in more than thirty years

And there’s no way you’ll read this if you are living

And if you’re dead I’m sure you have other things to do

If my dream was right. I had to dream I had woken up to be sure it was

 

You…Charlie Solomon looking yeah I’m sorry like Ratso Rizzo

Which I assured you you didn’t look like you were so broken hearted about it.

That was when …in the seventies sometime which is just about as precise

As we get up here in Yellow Knife. 72 maybe or at least since

I remember you aspired to a 1971 Volkswagen Super Beetle

Just something you said when you showed me the radio telescope you

 

Had built out behind your trailer in Bisbee Arizona about a month

Before you disappeared – for me – forever.

So in my dream I saw you in the crowd of ghosts in the night air

The Christmas night air I saw through the window. Dreaming that

Scene from “A Christmas Carol” (the book) Marley backing away

as the window opens “I wear the chains I forged in life!” and then gone

 

And me in my Scrooge nightgown and cap rushing to the window

And seeing the spirits trying to trying to save someone (a little girl!

A sad man!) but helpless and you gave me a little wave you had

A top hat and cane and looked damn dapper and were watching it all

 

And somehow I was Bill Murray and made a goofy wry remark (the movie)

Which I forget maybe something about how they didn’t get you.

Back at Fort Huachuca 1970 something and I was new and had

To stay in the barracks for a month or two and you were on the upper bunk

When I dropped my duffel bag and man knowing what I know now

I should have been happy that I had a guy who looked like Ratso Rizzo

 

And was taking a correspondence course in witchcraft.

“Who isn’t crazy these days?” I would have said to all those stories.

I can appreciate it now. Up here in Yellow Knife you’re what we need.

 

“Yeah?  Let me tell you about Charlie Solomon. That guy was crazy.

He got drafted in 65 or something right out of high school.

They were taking anybody – even Charlie -- and they were keeping them.

 

Charlie must have been busted twice in his first two years and

They let him re-enlist and the he was busted twice more.

You know what for? Ok, this is true. Charlie was working in supply

And he found out – he read everything – from some old papers that

Our MI Company in WW2 was entitled to a railroad car.

So he ordered one. Months later the Company Commander got a call…

 

But Charlie was sincere and everybody knew it.

So all they did was bust him to Private again.

Sincerity counted for a lot in the old army.

There was always a place for a sincere fuckup.

Which is the way things should be.

And let me tell you he was sincere. Huachuca was the headquarters of

 

The Army Electronic warfare center so while Charlie was ordering

That railroad car he was also borrowing everything he needed

To build a radio telescope to detect aliens which Charlie sincerely

Thought were a menace or had to be watched in any case and

This also required him to build a headquarters out in the desert

Where he spent weekends. A broken down trailer near Bisbee

With orange shag carpeting and electronic manuals and soldering irons

 

And the damn telescope thing beeped which was good enough for me.

 

By then following the rule that the army did then

That there was always a place for a sincere fuckup

Charlie had been removed from supply and given a job

As the clerk in the Classified Document depository where

As he told us he read all about the secret experiments the Russians

Were conducting with child psychics at an undisclosed place

Below the Siberian tundra who were sending out their astral bodies

Or what we in our ignorance called astral bodies to peek into

Kissinger’s secret meetings or so we suspected.”

You were happy then, Charlie.

 

But I’ll bet you were even happier when

After getting orders to Vietnam you vanished from

The face of the earth but were sincere enough

To send back the secret documents you had taken

To Colonel Whateverhisnamewas with that little note.

“Enjoyed reading these”

Exactly as you wrote that.

You must have been happy.

 

Where are you now Charlie Solomon?