Intensity was the face he wore.
That grave and gravel voice
that made such guttural noises.
Face scratched with a thin greying beard.
Razors that cut against the grain.
A ***** that bled him.
The red that wet him
was not the barber’s blade
but bullets biting fiercely
dropping bodies near him.
Hearing nightly pleas,
Young boys cry
“Please, please let me survive.
Let me make it out alive”
While they dig their own grave;
In holes that tare both ways.
And on the other side
of the barbed wired enemy line
Other young men cry
“Ich will nicht sterben”
Still as stone and twice as stern,
he watches the world
and both sides burn.
Each rose plucked,
each stem broken,
replanted permanently in the battlefield
to feed the fierce war machine
which is never satiated.