Seventeen, looking out to no man’s land
changed forever his heart now hard as stone
since stepping on a blood drenched beach of sand,
his boyish looks now lost, his smile a frown.
His father lied to get him his command
he said the boy was twenty and well read,
and here surrounded by such evil things
to the devils table he will be fed.
Waiting for the enemy to appear
from trenches where they too are serving kings,
and in this hell hole, nothing but despair,
the bodies from both sides rot and decay,
stripped of their dignity, their hearts laid bare,
and mothers rue the day they went away.