Draft On My Heels

Hayseed Jane, it isn’t grain the boys next door are pumping in your silo.

Where have all the flowers gone? They’re weeping over four dead in Ohio.

Me and Joe, we had to go fight Charlie over there, and that’s an order-

to Vietnam for Uncle Sam, so Joe and I, we made plans for the border.

With the wind at my back and a draft on my heels,

I’m holding my breath, and I’m lasting.

The answer, my friend, it gets blown by the wind.

The question gets muffled in the asking.

Like Huck and |Tom, we rowed along the river through the darkness – Finn and Sawyer.

At the bank his conscience sank, but I fell for an immigration lawyer.

Joe’s falling in, our falling out, and I won’t set a foot on the peace bridge.

Last I knew, he took a few shouting “Sammy!” storming up a steep ridge.

Ho Chi Minh will rise again. Nixon lying down, and Saigon’s falling.

Someone said that Joe was dead. I don’t know, but I knew he wasn’t calling.

Look out, baby. Can’t you see between the lines in the proud dawn’s early lighting?

They’re running out of agent orange. Still, the White House can’t see who it’s fighting.