A dream of pitched skies.
My complexion illumined,
By nocturnal radiance of gloom,
Shined steel rays from the moon.

Creeping coastal winds on my right.
Frothing waves approaching my skin,
Sand constricting my flesh like pins,
Doomed to deep rapture, I could not win.

The shores of scorching Tripoli sands.
With Arabic fire potent of golden alchemy,
Above burning desert, under molten sea,
Lies Ottoman provinces, drowned at scree.

Were I to become a victim of Siren's call?
To sink without ship or a captain's crest,
Was a fleeting frig sailing to sea-change, lest
I collapse bellowing into Mother Earth's breast.

When you saw your brothers' chests ripped open,
Did you exile the cross from yours?
When you sliced the screaming German's flesh,
Did you devour his body of Christ?
When you stared at God from the narrow grave,
Did you see him with his back turned?
When you heard the firing squad on your desertion,
Did you listen to the call of His will?

When you slumped to the ground, drained of ichor and soul,
Did you meet Him? Did you forgive Him?

You were killed at 7:31 a.m, July 6th 1915 at the Battle of the Somme
One minute after the execution of your regiment to charge towards
The furious glare of sunlight
The thunder of sentries
Firing bolts of metal
To crash, break and rip everyone around you
Trampling, clambering over each other
Bloodcurdling yells stopped by their choking
Stamped out by the whizzing hail of bullets
And no time to accept fate in the suicide mission
As your mind is punctured by the enemy
And fragments of your skull bristles the red hill
Splashed of your blood which pumped the heart
That cared for so many, now exposed as mortar fire
Shreds through your cavity and dismembers
The broken dreams and broken limbs
You once had.

You were remembered by the dwindling few
Of who you were back home, before the draft.
How many were killed, how little they know
That you truly died as you said your Goodbyes.

Parallel, aligned and set
Together, in vivo, they met
In shadows, spines slumped
One bemused, one dumped
Apart, in this company, til death.

Born into a world of innocence
Sifting through colors of bright.
The hazy mirage of a yellow beam
Beating softly down upon new-born skin.
Peer over the picket fence at nearby strangers
Sharing lives of baby blue paradise wrapped in freedom.
Commune with those of shared land and ideas and interests
Bearing similar corporeal, external forms of lightened complexion.
But inside, holds an unspecified, weighted form of soul
To burden and contort the body with potent strength
Pulling convulsed limbs to the polluted soil
Red tormenting glare of familiarity
Stripping with each lash of fire
Weathered skin on the sunset
Charred, buried as the night
Falls upon every measure
Every idea, every fantasy
Every revelation of love
As bones are tugged
Towards the white
Core of the Earth
And you wake up.

Bodies of black water
Marching towards the shore
In tides and waves of hordes
Overlapping as they roar.

On the pier, I caught her
Waist in molten charcoal
Whirled in tidal black hole
Engulfing her as it folds.

Daylight, upon the mer
Awakened from my sleep
Dreams of haunting Banshee
Sinking On The Iron Sea.