I
Born into a broken world
Sent to fight their war
Darkness clothes the sky
My enemy
has no name.
Striking
burnt fields
Ducking
to the ground
Swallow
pain
Survive.
Mud sloshing in boots
Fire brightens
***** faces,
Sweaty animals
My comrades.
Shots fired,
reverie ends
Screams
echo
in foreign land
I mind your warning
‘Come home alive son’
And I will father
Just in time to fight again.

II
Husband’s at war
Keeping others safe
I turn up the music
And wait.

Neighbours got a visit
Army came to say
Son
died
A noble death
Doesn’t stop their tears.

III
You only need
one good shot
To play a round of God
We’re in control
Of life out here
A gun
can seal your fate.

My wife’s at home
Waiting
I write her everyday
I pray I make it
Keep my family safe.

IV
What type of noble death
Is supposed to make it right?
All that’s left
is a flag
Keeping bodies warm
In cold
stone
graves.
Trumpets sound
honour
Shots remember
death
Tears shed
In memory of soldiers
Marching on.
War around us
Life
stopped in time.

V
When I look around
We’re all the same
We each play our part
Small acts
unkind
Paid forward to another.
One day a man is killed
The next his son’s a soldier.
The war inside hearts
Spoken
in hate
Leaving us broken,
Seething,
Hunting
for just cause.
War may take families
Terrorists;
sons,
but
We are all victims.
No one wins a war
Casualties can’t win a fight.

VI
Proud new days
In an old war
Change has come
Political history
Declaring:
‘Yes We Can!’
Can we take it back?
Soldiers
marching to their graves
Does change mean
Past can be rewritten?
The memories
robbed
From families,
Children.
Does change mean
My brother will never fight?
For someone else’s cause
While the world waits
For
Our children
to become
Collateral damage.