Last Night I Felt Like a Writer

Forward:  

I wrote this poem about my cousin 5 years ago and posted it on DUP.  
I never told my cousin I had written it until last night.  You see he is man of priniciples, some of which I don't agree.  I knew that he didn't consider poetry any good unless it rhymes.  Rhyming never my style I was hesitant to read it to him thinking my message of the poem would get lost because of style.  
 
Last night I read it to him on the phone.  I could hold it back no further.  
We had always been close growing up, he being 10 years older. Kind of like the brother I never had .....  
 
I read it and he was blown away.  Not just by content but by style.  He honored me as a writer, something I have always craved.  When I started this journey of writing and up until this day, all I wanted to know from my readers is, are my words any good ?  I got that answer last night in part, so I present the poem again.  A poem so personal to me and my cousin, each time I read it, I get shivers down my spine .....  
 
 
Coffee and Cake, Vietnam, 1966  
 
Went to my cousin's house   
to see him   
After his one year tour was over   
Spring of 1966   
 
He went over as an officer   
Having completed college and ROTC   
My family and his, in the living room   
Watching slides and having coffee and cake   
 
Kind of like a travel log of a distant world   
People, customs, villages and soldiers   
Seemed kind of benign, not so bad   
Till the whammo, right in our face   
 
Dead bodies, napalm babies, carnage   
We all let out a gasp, our suburban world crashing   
My cousin said he didn't know those slides were in there   
But he didn't apologize, how do you excuse war ?   
 
That night left an indelible mark   
I think he wanted us to witness horror   
Wars are messy, life is cheap for the repressed   
My young teenage eyes, stained and opened