February 18, 2010

Robert D. Wilson's

     The Wonderland Amusement Park                                                               

                                 ________________________________

"Everything you imagine is real."

Pablo Picasso

"A man who has not passed through

the inferno of his passions has never

overcome them"

Carl Gustav Yung

impossible

these things yung calls dreams?

spring shadows

robert d. wilson

©2010

Once upon a time, a naive young 18 year old man-child enlisted in the U.S. Navy and volunteered to go to Vietnam. He wanted to get away from his girlfriend so he wouldn't make her pregnant and he'd red in Life Magazine that enlisted sailors had it made there, housed in their own apartments and confined to clerical duties in Saigon, the so-called safe party central of the Republic of South Vietnam. He was born and raised in Los Angeles County, California, and was stationed 30 miles from his home on the Long Beach Naval Base, being trained (what a joke) for duty on a mine sweeper.  The only time he set foot on a mine sweeper was when it was his turn for night time guard duty, and since there were no Viet Cong on or near the base, his duty was rarely checked.  He spent guard duty listening endlessly to the twenty minute song, East West, by the Paul Butterfield Blues Band and fishing. That is, when he did guard duty.

He usually paid someone else to take his duty so he could wander around with his shipmates at the Long Beach Pike Amusement Park, a well worn, soon to be torn down seedy place, looking for whores that were few and far between, and the ones they met looked like zombies and were far from touchable.  The area swarmed with military police who monitored what sailors wore, did, and didn't do.  A lot of sailors got their first tattoo there but this guy didn't like tattoos.  Tired of the Pike (the pit), he spent weekends hanging out at a hippie commune near Hollywood and Vine on La Brea Avenue.  Sometimes he went home to see friends and family.  It never seemed to him like he was in the armed forces. On base he shared an apartment with three other sailors and ate buffet style at a mess hall that actually looked like a buffet restaurant and the food there was pretty damned good.

The guy, me, thought he had it made, so when signs were posted on base asking for volunteers to go to Vietnam, Life Magazine and his desire to leave the nest and see the world convinced him to volunteer his services.  He couldn't wait to be assigned to a comfy office in Saigon, far away from the killing fields he'd seen on, what he later learned, were tainted television newscasts influenced by big business and politicians who depend on the wealthy to finance their political campaigns. Prior to Long Beach, he was sent to boot camp in San Diego and later to Counter Insurgency Training on Coronado Island.  He was a trained ARA sharpshooter as a civilian and easily received the designation during arms training at a nearby Marine Base.  He was also his high school's champion weight lifter and in excellent physical shape.  The Navy keeps records of these accomplishments including the higher than high scores he received on testing during boot camp and counter insurgency training.

    " To the mind that is still,

     the whole universe surrenders."

   Lao Tze

©1968 Needless to say, I was in for a surprise. Sailors in Nam didn't give a shit if I was popular in high school, won scores of dance contests, some on television's The Sam Riddle Show, was a champion weightlifter from a conservative upper middle class high school that was only 13 miles from the city of Los Angeles. Most of the swabs I ran with were from dirt poor, poor, and lower middle class homes, the the majority America's southern states.  The only thing that counted to them was my ability to shoot, my desire for action, and my ability to play the guitar. Here what counted was survival and returning stateside. When I got off the TWA Airliner at Tan sa Nut Air Force Base on the edge of Saigon (They didn't ship many soldiers on Naval planes ( target practice for the Viet Cong ) for safety reasons and because it took 18 t0 20 hours to get to Nam with a stopover in Japan; I was stunned to see uniformed guards standing guard in front of every plane, and upon disembarking, was slapped in the face by the hottest heat and humidity I'd ever felt or imagined.  Almost instantly we were taken by truck to our new quarters, a converted dump of a hotel, where we would would wait for reassignment to our permanent duty stations. During the week and a half I waited for reassignment, my new brothers and I went to whore houses like people scurry to work during weekdays in Los Angeles.  I was finally away from the nest.  I didn't drink beer or smoke cigarettes, but getting laid for the first time (I was a virgin who'd done everything else, but thanks to conservative parents and high school sex education movies using bulls and cows, I lost my virginity the first night I was in Saigon). None of us knew at the time, including our superiors, that Saigon was being set for a major offensive by the Viet Cong, the North Vietnamese Regular Army, and members of the Communist Chinese Army, that would begin two days after I left for my permanent duty station in the Mekong Delta region which had a top secret tag on our unit. wearing a dragonʼs  skin, this overcast night---  the tiger!  robert d. wilson ©2010 "Tet is the Vietnamese New Year. Normally, it is a time for celebration. In 1968, it was the eve of a mass offensive staged by the Viet Cong. I was newly in country, walking with some buddies through the red light district in downtown Saigon. It was a surreal evening. Almost dreamlike.  Dali-esque. The weather was humid. Clouds kept the moonlight at bay. The street  was overflowing with Vietnamese civilians and American servicemen.  Newbies, our sense of adventure was on overdrive. We wanted to see and experience everything. No parents to tell us what we could or couldnʼt do.  There was also an intangible something in the air, like an electrical current. Itʼs hard to describe. Something was about to come down. The calm before the storm?  Everyone but the U.S. Military knew what was going to occur. There were an unusual number of funeral processions that evening. Small groups of Vietnamese citizens walking through the middle of the street with a decorated casket, the deceasedʼs picture on top, carrying joss sticks and playing indigenous instruments.  Later, after I was transferred to my duty station in Dong Tam, did I learn the truth about the funeral processions. They were used to transport arms and enemy soldiers into the nationʼs capitol in preparation for the Tet Offensive." Excerpted from Robert D. Wilson's e-book, Vietnam Ruminations, the Apocalypse Now of English Language short Japanese short form poetry books on the subject. ©2003 This was my baptism into the twilight zone.  A few days later, far from personal hotel rooms in Saigon and doing clerical work, I was sent to the heart of the Mekong Delta, Dong Tam, the dragon's belly where temperatures sometimes got as hot as 127 degrees . . . a land of mirrors, kansas level flat ground carved out of a jungle and the Mytho river, where The Wonderland Amusement Park was founded. Welcome the TET Offensive . . . the land that Dali painted in the mind of Francis Ford Cappola's when he created Apocalypse Now.  Once one enters such a world, the difference between reality and dreams intertwine, like and ova and sperm. A new reality that the uninitiated will never grasp.   Don Quixote's world of mirrors, windmills, songs, and dreams.  A place where nothing is as it seems: The Wonderland Amusement Park. impossible, these things yung calls dreams? spring shadow a friend, my ass, your talk of dry leafs you'd skip stones across the pond in seconds! twilight dusk . . . red clouds harvesting new rice when she left our room, i tried to stop the movie . . .  it disappeared in to the dragon's mouth my words . . . too many syllables for warm nights she forgot  to buy cream bread, yesterday . . . a selfish farmer  wading through wet dreams the gunship in my dreams, watering summer skies you surprised me tonight with your phone call . . .  a honey moon floating through dreams rose bush,  would thorns make me feel safer? she came home  today, thinking she wasn't buntis . . .  a tourist guide playing cowgirl tea leaves . . .  what do you say  when stars weep? yesterday she threw ceramics at the wall . . . said she wanted our baby to die almost march . . .  this will be our last garden! i wanted to die yesterday until you came out and said you're in the same place you're my angel, buttering rose blossoms riding in our car with the man who fucked my girl . . .  thick clouds on a highway full of jeepneys she knows when to butter the toast . . .  spring haiku will you treat me well when he's left and you're pregnant with the seed of another man? she'll sleep in this morning, her back facing west let me know when your leafs have fallen and you're ready once again to be my  woman the clouds color . . .  she doesn't like her lies uncovered does she feel like a slut, a martyr . . .  an actress in a role she doesn't want? seeding clouds . . .  she won't let me out of her sight! too late for sushi, i locked myself out of the bedroom . . .  i'll sleep alone in i said no . . .  not a petal  from this tree! if it weren't for you, i'd be a sideshow . . .  juggling syllables through a firey hoop she watches every petal fall . . .  shaving ice yes i was drunk and it felt  good . . .  yesterday you crushed my desire to live seeds  strangled by lies . . .  empty clouds lies, i'll never know; shadows you've kept under trees etched with too many names clear skies . . .  the hope for new rice . . .  lessens slick, the way she his his photos from me . . .  after taking them off her laptop her suitor, the video, kissed the wind she'll swim  through cumulus clouds into a dream that may or may not work out? our worker resigned tonight . . . leaving winter the bastard had the nerve to ask my girl to spend time alone with him and she accepted he still tries to YM her thinking she loves him? he demanded two hours alone with mahal ko . . .  an actor playing a scene for what it's worth a thousand stars, none of them wearing spring he talks like a six grade student . . . telling me how many times he  masterbates each day she asked me to help her up, to water grass if she defends him, she'll have played her hand . . .  either i am or i am not she couldn't  promise me a no . . . shattered slate actually she seemed relieved he left quickly . . .  the rain cleansing polluted air fish scales . . . she cared more for the new car possessive once more, she tightens her belt . . .  carrying someone's child up a steep mountain worried, she'll have her period . . . sleepless fish taking the home pregnancy test twice this week . . .  anxious to see a shooting star will clouds  last through the evening? glossalia robert d. wilson ©2010