The My Lai Massacre

Blame my history GCSE. Very rough first draught.


Huddled group of women and children,
Squatting in the dirt.

Ordered line of armed men,
In dark green camouflage.

Woman, her arms around her child,
Thinking:

Why have they come?
They are not here,
The ones they are looking for.
We are what we seem.
We are innocent.

Man, his hands on his gun,
Thinking:

We have come, and we will
Find the ones who are here.
These people lie, they hide the ones
We seek. They are trying to
Deceive us, but we do not believe them.

Woman, her heart cold with fear,
Thinking:

What have we done?
I do not understand why
They hate us so.

Man, his heart cold with hate,
Thinking:

They killed my friends,
They hate us as we hate them.
We fight each other in this war.

Woman, tears trickling down her face,
Thinking:

My child will die this day.
I will die this day.
All my friends and family
Will die this day
And I cannot stop it.

Man, his face set hard,
Thinking:

When this is over,
When these people are dead,
Then I can go home
And see my wife and children.
I can see my family again.

Huddled group of women and children,
Squatting in the dirt.

Ordered line of armed men,
In dark green camouflage.

The men raise their guns
In ordered fashion.
They fire their guns
With perfect precision.

The women and children die
All together in the dirt.
They fall and bleed
All together in the dirt.

The man walks away,
Thinking of his wife and children.

---------

Just a note, in Viet Nam (where the My Lai massacre took place) it is lush jungle, so they wouldn't be wearing khaki. More dark greens and browns...jungle pattern camo.

I'm not quite sure about this. I liked from "Man, his face set hard...family again". I liked the emotion there. I think you kind of flip between your registers a bit two much though, initially you seem very detatched, just describing the scene, and then you start engaging with people's thoughts and emotions, and then scene, and then emotion. I get what you're trying to do, and the subject matter here is definetely difficult. I'd suggest trying to feel it a bit more (this will upset you, but it will make the poem better), and try to see the scene more clearly so you can describe it in more detail. For example, what does this man's hand look like (tanned, pale, freckled, bloody, shaking...).
I think "Heart pounding in fear" is a little cliche, so again, I'd suggest trying to really feel it. It's difficult with something like this to put yourself in the shoes of your characters, but try to feel some of her terror, or even think of your own fears and magnify them, and look at how you'd react physically to them.
Some of your imagery is very vivid and I like the layout. Don't be so hard on yourself, and definetely don't give up on this one just yet.

Thank you for reading! I'll try and edit accordingly...

I really like this, and I must commend you for taking on this subject, as it's something that I feel strongly about and have never really been able to approach squarely - at least in writing. I want to write one of my college essays about Vietnam - the prompt is just asking for it - but I don't think I can do it without going out on a limb...

I thought the third to last stanza was a little strange with the fashion/precision lines... it sounded almost like you were trying to rhyme them but didn't quite get there. The whole thing was really quite... dry, but I felt like that was purposeful because you were trying to convey the desolation of war, maybe? On the whole, I really liked it a lot. Especially the switching back between viewpoints and the use of the colon. The way it's punctuated makes it sort of formal and distant, very detached - I like that.