The Vietcong Tunnels: A Poem by J. Patrick Lewis

Well...I guess you could say that May was vacation month at Political Verses. I didn't post one rhyming rant. I have a poem for you today thanks to the generosity of poet J. Patrick Lewis.


The Vietcong Tunnels
by J. Patrick Lewis

Some were narrow, some were deep,
But all of them snick-snaked along
Into your agitated sleep:
The tunnels of the Vietcong.

And they were dug to fight the war
Americans had thought was right.
The staunch belief they held before
They learned where they were sent to fight:

A jungle that defied all maps.
The shambles of liana vines
Disguised a trip of booby traps
And other anti-human mines.

And there were those GIs who crawled
Inside the holes like stealthy cats,
Individuals who were called
Many things and tunnel rats.

What, you might ask, did GIs do
Inside the burrow of the foe?
Well, this was war, that much is true,
But it was many years ago.

We quit the war and stopped the bomb,
Still confounding right and wrong.
Still spidered under Vietnam?
The tunnels of the Vietcong.