Memories of orange afternoon sun
Burning gold rays into mist
Such a sight of beauty beheld
Guns and bombs are hardly missed
There is such a gas that burns the lungs
My ears heard months before
But my body believed not in such hate
Before the burns of war
The roar of engines soared from above
A cry of warning before the storm
I had hardly a moment to breathe
The walls of my trench move, deform
Never before has my imagination torn
The edges of evils like these
And never before could I imagine death
Be carried on such a breeze
The moment I saw the hazy air
I jumped to my feet in shock
And out I surged from my home of mud
Choking, I could not walk
A man knows not panic
Until he cannot breathe
As a man cannot know war
Until bullets he lays underneath
To this day I remain unsure
If it was tears of poison or pain I wept
But I laid and watched my men retreat
In the moments before I slept
Memories of orange afternoon sun
Burning gold rays into mist
Such a sight of beauty beheld
Guns and bombs are hardly missed
May 6, 2014
May 6, 2014 at 7:19 PM UTC
Memories of orange afternoon sun
Burning gold rays into mist
Such a sight of beauty beheld
Guns and bombs are hardly missed
There is such a gas that burns the lungs
My ears heard months before
But my body believed not in such hate
Before the burns of war
The roar of engines soared from above
A cry of warning before the storm
I had hardly a moment to breathe
The walls of my trench move, deform
Never before has my imagination torn
The edges of evils like these
And never before could I imagine death
Be carried on such a breeze
The moment I saw the hazy air
I jumped to my feet in shock
And out I surged from my home of mud
Choking, I could not walk
A man knows not panic
Until he cannot breathe
As a man cannot know war
Until bullets he lays underneath
To this day I remain unsure
If it was tears of poison or pain I wept
But I laid and watched my men retreat
In the moments before I slept
Memories of orange afternoon sun
Burning gold rays into mist
Such a sight of beauty beheld
Guns and bombs are hardly missed
The first battle of WWI where the Germans used poison gas successfully in mass against the French. Chlorine gas had been used unsuccessfully once three months prior. This poem is written from a French soldier's point of view.
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