Somewhere outside the lines of demarcation
comes a rushing whoosh,
trailing a wavy string of white smoke.
Then a dull pop, and green-star clusters
light the hill with phosphorescence.
Then, predawn dark once again.
Burnt images on retinas give hope.

The wabbit grinned in the dark,
in his bed of raw earth.
The handset squawked, muffled and muted,
here in the waiting silence.
Across ten feet of weed
and discarded tins
the snake was coming in.

The wabbit stretched, drank greedily,
from a canteen of musky water,
from a leech-infested pool.
Early morning luxury,
in a jungle war,
in the predawn morning cool.

The sky showed grey
as the snake came in,
crusted with sweat and mud.
Tired from chasing unpenned pigs,
stomp-down crazy
through the night.
And the bayonets dripped blood.

Snakes and wabbits,
keyed in, to someone else's war.
While the mamasan chews betel nut
and grades broken rice,
squatting barefoot
in the chaff and dirt.
With the slowly rolling jaw.

Snakes and wabbits, in a bomb crater,
where war is natural like the rain.
Sometimes there is no war,
when the drought returns again.
Sometimes the Buddha turns his head,
and the rabbit feels
the viper's deadly pain.