gives way to the chimera in the mind of the soldiers:We hugged bamboo & leaned against a breeze off the river,slow-dragging with ghostsfrom Saigon to Bangkok,with women left in doorwaysreaching from AmericaThe feared images of the past and promise for the future is that which can't be camouflaged. It is forced to the fore of ones thoughts.The fight about to be commenced is a focused vision," a world revolvedunder each man's eyelid."is an alternate expression of life passing before ones eyes. This vision prompts the realization that the soldiers don't belong here and their demise would be senseless under such circumstances.This is a statement about the war itself. The word "Chimera" also serves as political commentary. The use of words and phrases familiar to one in order to fully express the nature of the Vietnam experience carries on.The poem "You and I are Disappearing" is a series of similes that repeats in an unrealized effort to find an image that describes the image of a Vietnamese girl engulfed in flames:She burns like foxfire in a thigh-shaped valley A skirt of flames dances around her at duskThe similes are truly unable to visualize the incoherent morality of the image."Komunyakaa uses several images to displaythe horror before him."3 The vision is beautiful and horrible. The inability to find a fitting simile mirrors the inability or unwanting of the soldiers to do anything,"We stand with our handshanging at our sides,". The work concludes with a biblical refrence,"She burns like a burning bushdriven by a godawful wind."This event must be inspired by an "awful god" because of its horrible and unexplainable nature. Someone must be held accountable. At its conclusion, there is no order. There is onlychaos.Encompassed within 'Roll Call" is a sense of order restored, "lined up for revielle,readyto roll-call each M-16propped upright". It is the penultimate military existance,orderly and ready to go. In an effort to retu...
