Dear Mother

I shot another man today.
With a bullet a sent him on his way.
I went numb a thousand men ago.
Their faces haunt me when I try to sleep.
soldier that’s my occupation
A soldier Boy sending boys like me to their graves.
Lord have Mercy on the soul of this soldier boy.

I want to smell again the fresh cut grass of the fields of southland.

I want to taste again the salt on my lips as I walk out of the ocean on Hanalei beach.

I want to see again the ruins of past civilisations in Rome.

I want to hear again the soulful blues busker singing his heart out on Beale st.

I want to feel again the cool fresh water of a mountain stream

But if I can never do any of these things again. I want to be anywhere with you.

The dawn cracks as the majestic artillery ceases its roar.
I sit in a trench that once sustained life.
A boy in men’s clothes, watching and waiting.
The whistle sounds that puts my heart in my throat, as fear rolls across my body.
I climb the 20 foot ladder in seconds, over the top rifle at the ready.
I’ll do my part for king and country.
As I look across the writhing and moaning muddy hell.
The barking of machine guns reach my ears.
With the sound of steel bees whizzing past my head I run past the barbed wire nest that protects our trench.
As I sprint with a scream in my voice, a fear in my heart and heroics running through my brain.
I see the enemy close yet a 1000 miles away.
Suddenly the world goes quiet, slows, my legs fail and I fall to the embrace of the mud.
Another lost son to the heavenly hell of Passchendaele