explosive autumn
now, as below, so above
meteor shower

caught in wind-carved ice
on this distant nameless peak:
an empty Coke can

      War Ku - Asia

VIET NAM

dug-in in Da Nang -
studying history's
most ghastly lessons

FREE CHINA (Taiwan, Formosa)

T'aichung morning show -
Chinese fighters dogfight
over CCK

                                      (CCK = Ching Chuang Kang was then a secret airbase in T'aichung.)

NORTH KOREA

North Korean seas
bow-spray rakes the flight deck crew -
bone-cold and ice-strafed

OKINAWA

flight of the Habu -
reports of UFOs
flood the base switchboard

                            (Habu = the variety of pit vipers native to Okinawa, and the nickname of the SR-71,
                                                a super-high-speed reconnaissance jet flying out of Kadena Airbase,
                                                so-called because of the sinuous movement of its titanium fuselage.)

JAPAN

Hiroshima hellfire:
could this crucible yet forge
new katana?

etched in memories -
in stone walls by the death light,
red chrysanthemum