It is an era that need be forgotten, yet not be forgotten
Isolated by the rest of humanity for forsaking humanity,
The lives of no mere mortals were sacrificed on the promise of freedom,
While in some town couped up by hate, anger and despair
Families were left an unsolvable puzzle, in infinite pieces
It was an era that they told us was over,
And yet in a trench somewhere near the tip of a continent
Men whose bodies are covered by a dark pigment no different from mine,
Different to that of the man commanding them to dig deeper,
Whose behaviour and attitude seems no different to that of his father,
And his father, and his father’s father, and their forefathers
On whose behest a mark on a people was heavily branded
A sense of nostalgia overwhelms my body
And so while I walk past these men working in the trenches
I look upon them with a face contorted by disgust
Not toward them nor the pale skinned man who dictates their every movement
It is towards those of the same pigment as the men in these very trenches
Whose stomachs have been fattened by the labour of these very men
Whose every lie they have forced them to believe
With the talk of an era that still instills fear and instigates hate
Misdirected towards still figures who have as much life in them as the men they honour
It is an era that is still not yet over