By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
A catalog of youthful travels by foot, schooner, yacht, and boat across Mexico, Japan, Venezuela, and Fiji, where every destination happened to have a battle going on — yet none of them was Vietnam.
A compact travelogue that lists arrivals by every means and across every latitude - 'to Mexico on foot,' 'to the sea of Japan / on a Sehooner,' 'to Venezuela / on a yachat,' 'across the Tropic / of Caprieora on a boat' - until 'the good Fiji / Saved my life.' The turn is in the last lines: 'through some sort / of design / All tie places had / a battle going on; / but it was not, / Vietnam.' The poem reframes its catalogue of adventure as a series of near-wars survived, with the one absent war naming itself last and loudest.