Beholding starry eyed you,
Eager to court the first shades of war,
Light pierced our hopeful eyes,
Deafened by the wail of bugles,
Haunted by musty coat men,
We were dragged out of safety,
Thrust like babes into a fiery hell,
Those flames rank with sweat and death,
Ordained our palling brows,
Tattered tent nets flailed us, victims
Of staunch abattoirs,
My eager feet tried crawling back,
Panic defying my dutiful charge,
As a shotgun was thrust upon my hand,
I lost thought of what to do,
The sky weared a marauding black,
Sharp shooting fingers sifted sand,
These missiles like plainsongs summoned,
Twin coal clad friends to solemn graves,
I watched their bleeding guts,
Entrails splaying ammolate altars,
Seized with the frenzy that killed them,
I leaped into the dangerous air,
No trench to hide my body,
No sand sack to rest my head,
I charged the might of fury upon,
The calibres, which killed my friends,
Maimed my chest a faster bullet,
Apace the current of enemy winds,
I collapsed in a broken heap,
Amidst clay fingers of a boggy marsh,
Plastering my mien disquiet,
Squeezing sound from out my ears,
"Why do they command us, move forward!
When death moves us back through our fears."
« return.