Poems About Ocean Vuong by Top Critiquers

Once the bombs fall and the bullets fly
It’s time to get out of there

There is no diplomacy
There is no law to abide by

There is no process to follow
The instincts to stay alive kick in

While some lost limbs under the train
Others go through desert at night

Trying to avoid the blistering sun
Dying of thirst
  looking at plastic gallons of water
    spilled on upon the earth

Their vision escaping
Their mission seeming hopeless
As border patrol is approaching…

“Let’s have another...

The news announced the sinking ship;
water pushing its metal hull
off a gangplank of the straight
until it crumbled as crystal over rock

Planes spotted flotsam and jetsam
—pinched debris riding a caterpillar
of watery waves inching across the sea—
its waterlogged bite engorged
from strewn pages as leaves
sinking into a survivorless
translucency

Below, a commandeered army
—a delegation of new ghosts
manifesting posthumously
because sometimes Poseidon reads
while sitting peacefully at his desk—
allowing...

I see the lust and hunger in your eyes,
green like the meadows we spend our
summers trampling through as children.

Home… Who would have thought we
would come back to the place where we
began and started. Memories filter in like
all the times we sat on the front porch
waiting and watching. Or when we laid
down on the soft grass and we would
see the stars shatter and break like
bullets going straight for the heart.

Did you know how many times I saw
you cry and how I wished I could do
something about it? I never saw...

If you must know anything,
know that you were born  
 because no one else was coming'  
   
          - Ocean Vuong  
   
   
 ¡  
   
Flutterwings:  
you know you always escape a day  
we never made -- but how  
I would find you in every crushing second  
I wanted to die  
there, looking up at your dire ascent from  
these clouds billowing above where I lie;  
Stay.  
   
¡  
   
I never caught you still but blurry;  
lines faded against the backdrop sky,   ...