They marched off with no idea of the forthcoming horrors
For thousands and thousands there would be no tomorrows
They were summoned, no choice, they just had to go
The fodder that falls when the big weapons bellow.
Men who yesterday were working out on the farm
Sent to **** other men who’d done them no harm
Young men who’d answered the clarion call
Went to The Somme, to die, and to fall.
The nightmare of trenches, the cries in the night
The black lines through letters home to cover-up the plight
The new men conscripted who died the same day
Who fell from the bullets before their first pay.
The young soldier killed at the point of a knife
The sad telegram to his new pregnant wife
The horror for one man as he killed another
Standing next to a stranger he now calls a brother.
The smell of the cordite that lingers everywhere
Accompanies the stench in this deathly nightmare
The noise that so deafens, that damages ears
Fearing cowardice charges young men hide their fears.
Men started this obscenity in quiet comfortable rooms
They don’t do the dying nor end up in war tombs
They’ll take all the glory any victories afford
That belongs to those buried beneath foreign green sward.
©JRW2014
Part of a series of WW1 poems I'm writing currently
