Vietnam: Bogged Down with Life

We say "bogged down"
He hears "showdown"
Life is "bugged" and always shoots first
But we can fake the fate,
We must make the date!
Such eyes don't think: they know,
Thus "Life" being a warm gun, bullets overloaded,
That majestic priest or wizard is sheltered
By the bulletproof kevlar coated
Whield of the proud wrinklesles of his heraldic wisdom.
Eagle eyed, he knows that the "wheel of fortune"
Turns amid the love apples
And the scenic railway of he huge fair
But his viewfindered soul catches
The infrared threats of all the nights and days to be.
No "bogged down " then, but aware of the "bug:"
Two tin medals, one for life, one for death
Before the last diving into the first light,
And the beard of an indian chief
Able to read the whisper of the hills
Thus definetly deaf to the thunder of the steel.
Your picture is a forecast, his image a foresight
And I know read in the black and grey
The sceaming white shout of ... "Stronger than life " !
Don't you ever forget: "shoot first" and not ..."first,... shoot"!

-- Marc Acquaviva in his review of this work

This was my first serious photoshoot from 2004. Javier Machado, a NYC based actor, needed photos to promote his play about a Vietnam war hero. The idea was to picture a forsaken person in the midst of the ignorant crowd. It was fun to watch how people reacted to a guy (me) shooting a dirty looking veteran in a wheelchair, with dog tags, and a bunch of greasy hair (which was a wig) in the middle of Times Square