COMBATE

Five days after Morrison died, Vietnamese revolutionary poet Tố Hữu wrote a poem assuming the voice of Morrison:

“… You gang of devils! In whose name

Do you send B-52s,

Napalm, and poison gases

From the White House,

From Guam Island,

To Viet Nam?

To murder peace and national freedom,

To burn down hospitals and schools,

To kill people who know nothing but love,

To kill children who know nothing

but going to school,

To kill with poisons fields covered with

flowers and leaves all the four seasons,

To kill even the flow of poetry, song, music

and painting!

In whose name

Do you bury our American youth in

coffins?

Young men, strong and handsome,

Able today to release the power of nature

To bring happiness to men!

In whose name

Do you send us to thick jungles

Full of spike pits, of resistance swamps?

To villages and towns which become elusive

fortresses,

Where day and night the earth quakes and

the sky rocks..?

O Viet Nam, strange land

Where little boys are heroes,

Where hornets are trained as fighters,

Where even flowers and fruit become

weapons!

To hell, to hell with you,

You gang of devils!

And listen, O my America!

To this anguished voice,

the never-dying voice,

Of this son of yours, a man of this century…

Now my heart is at its brightest!

I burn my body.

So the flames may blaze

The Truth.”