The Great War

Waist deep into the mud

bracing for the charge, soon to come.

Rifles in hand, helmets tightly strapped

Across no man’s land, the enemy march

In this battle, you too fell

A lead fragment from a shell, astray

pierced the lung, tore the heart

The moment did not last.

The fight went on, raging for time untold

Yet your lifeless body laid frozen

Human, it could be called no more

Charred from the smoke, pale from the terror.

A monument was built

For you and all the others

They did not care that you were killed.

What for, did you really die?

Family, honour, fatherland

Public appeasement and petit lies.

A piece of, now, barren land

That was it, nothing more

Reviews

[John the Baptist]

The particular war that is the subject of the poem is not mentioned, but it could stand for all of them. The old men start them and the young men die in them. The speaker's rage at the waste comes across powerfully.