The Smell of Napalm in the Morning - June 6 2026

 

The Smell of Napalm in the Morning

June 6 2026

Weeds push up through the cracks,

buckle concrete

and over-shadow the grass.

The dandelion

on your average suburban lawn

and bordering the driveway

is a stoic survivor,

too sturdy to stop

too strong to kill.

They are like the hard men

who go to war on our behalf,

and do unthinkable things

we’d rather not know about.

While the orchids write poetry,

wallflowers stay at home,

and hothouse plants grow fast;

but their long slender stems

are weak and pale

and bend easily under the weight.

They are the boot camp rejects

and  conscientious objectors

who stay in their cushy jobs

at Dow chemical

pushing pencils

in some grey office cubicle.

Or study philosophy

normative ethics

introductory Zen,

and join in campus protests

against the war.

Meanwhile, the lawn looks terrible,

an embarrassment

for all the neighbours to see.

You can bomb it with chemicals

drop napalm like hell

or pave it over with concrete.

You can subvert language

and redefine your terms,

where war becomes peace

freedom slavery

and ignorance strength.

Because truth, as we know

is the first casualty,

and words are malleable

  — so they’re now wildflowers

and the garden intentional.

Or you can sue for peace

and learn to love the weeds,

or at least

live and let live.

In the first stanza, I was thinking of a quote often (probably incorrectly) attributed to George Orwell:

“People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.” This is what led me to the martial metaphor that ended up running through the rest of the poem. Where my poems go is far more a result of serendipity than intention."

The lines war is peace / freedom slavery / and ignorance strength are an homage to Orwell as well. Although really, the designation of “weed” is rather arbitrary, and as much a function of aesthetics as anything. So any redefinition isn’t so much untruthful as a shift in perspective. Perhaps we should be admiring their strength rather than reviling their persistence and fecundity! Learn to live and let live, as it were. (Detached acceptance. Ahhh  . . . if only I was Zen enough for that!)

In the film Apocalypse Now, Robert Duvall’s character Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore famously says: “Napalm, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for 12 hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn’t find one of ’em, not one stinkin’ dink body. The smell, you know, the gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like… victory.”

My title is but a pale imitation!

Between dandelion and orchid, I’m afraid I’m the hothouse flower.