Second Place Winner, July 2001 InterBoard Poetry Competition

Poetry

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Poetry

InterBoard Poetry Competition

Second Place Winner, July 2001

BAD NIGHT AT HAIPHONG
Tammy Turner Peadon
(Mi Poesías)

Two klics outside the port city, thick
underbrush hid clusters of olive clad
kids, bellies flat against slick earth
wet with mud and blood. Days here went

fast into night, and when dark came,
you prayed for light. Nights were bad,
you listened with strained ears through
a din of strange sounds, for sounds that

were stranger still. Most times, constant
fear kept you awake in apprehension, like the
mummy did in the fifth grade; trembling in
your G.I. Joe sleeping bag on Timmy McPherson's

living room floor. None of us knew scared like
this, but we all caught on real quick. Our
backyard battle plans and monster movie
anecdotes didn't apply in this show. By the

second night in the bush, we had all lost faith
in Hollywood. Somebody forgot to yell cut so
the stand-ins could take their places. It all
made you wonder what Audie was singing about.

Sometimes, you imagined that you smelled fish sauce,
heavy, oily; the sour odor of charlies with full
bellies. Ready to hunt all night on papered feet,
mute yellow draculas with a taste for cold blood.

Every now and then we got lucky, and the point man
would hear the low squeak of black silk bat wings
in time to thwart the midnight buffet. But most times
we weren't lucky, and some of us joined the army of
the undead; coming back to feast within the nightmares

of the rest of us. And we wondered what G.I. Joe
might do on a bad night in Haiphong, where the matinee
horrors were real, and none of us could find the
zippers down the backs of the monster suits.

Judge Harvey Stanbrough’s comment: “I selected 'Bad Night at Haiphong' for second place because of its brutal honesty, economy of words, and brilliant, emotional images. This poet struck an especially strong emotional chord in me.”