I find an article about the dread signs
of trauma P-T-S-D ever since Vietnam
that gives a symptom of gross shock
of moral injury of being involuntarily

Entrapped as I was when drafted 1966
so it turns out I am still going around
saying I am sorry, I am sorry, so sorry
Oh, not like in that sorry sonuvabitch

Or piece of sorry shit but really & truly
just for existing after(somehow)living
through, if just barely, surviving a war
that is mass murder, torture and that

Horror of what you didn’t want to do
but found ourselves in the middle of
anyway something happened so long
ago you’ve forgotten it, maybe it was

Too much for you to handle as a mere
child but no matter how hard you try
it won’t go away, just won’t go away
so it’s there so very sorry all your days.

 

James Van Looy has been a fixture in Boston’s poetry venues since the 1970s. He is a member of Cosmic Spelunker Theater and has run poetry workshops for Boston area homeless people at Pine Street Inn and St. Francis House since 1992. Van Looy leads the Labyrinth Creative Movement Workshop, which his Labyrinth titled poems are based on. His work appears weekly in Oddball Magazine.