The Mourning of Achilles

The battlefield is silent
Save for dying men's
Dying cries
To gods who never listen.
Ghosts of fallen soldiers
Weave between spears
And shields
Covering anguished faces.
A survivor drops to his knees
Next to a battered form
He knows
Is his greatest friend.
He removes his black helmet
Which is caked with blood and dust
Like him
And weeps over the body.
Light wind trails along the field
Tracing patterns in the grass
Still wet
With souls of butchered men.
The warrior chokes back tears
And places two gold coins
For Charon
On his friend's closed eyes.
He wraps the dead fingers
Around the hilt of his beaten sword,
His immortality
Bought with countless lives.

Reviews

[alesuriko]

Well, I like the pattern that for every three lines, there is a fourth line with only two words... but it would be nice if that had been consistent in the beginning, as the poem starts with two lines and the third line is the two worded line before the three line pattern starts and the end is only one line. Other than my small tendency to be picky... I really enjoyed this poem. It was well written, great good accuracy. The flow and rhythm was nice and the description was emotive and detailed. I enjoyed the sympathetic viewpoint of the battle and the characters. Everything was written in a way that made the readers empathize with the dead soldiers and the main characters. I also loved the last two lines, really sums every aspect of the poem up nicely. Very well done!