A song of shell and thunder whistles past my ear
the crack of distant laughter, empty and hollow,
your voice amid the terror stands out to me so clear
while heavy shrapnel nestles between my ribs.

"Mother of God!" one cries out in horror -
and clammy hands reaching for the collar of my shirt,
tugging, ripping, sending buttons flying steep as bullets,
for  frightened boys to burrow into my chest and pull out the lead.

Your eyes are focused in the blur, a raging sea of darkest green
bewildered at the sight of a deep red river
pouring towards the valley of my hip, the small dip between
bone and muscle, obscenely pooling like a strange lake;

Inviting you for a swim, had the barrel of a German gun then
missed its mark and pointed left; alas, I sit
and bleed to death underneath your fear-stained gaze; I apologize
and in the haze I lift my arm to gently graze the dried mud on your cheek.

The trench has lost another light, or what was left of its sorry embers;
I pray you will sleep sound tonight, ears shut tight from
screaming, laughing, crying, dying - just think,
if it bears not too much pain, of my love, and speak my name when

My mother asks about her son - with steady voice you tell her
that with a smile on my lips and a warmth in my breast
I thought of her, and passed on.

Gallantry badge stitched to rotting cloth
as the skin sinks and the bones fade
and the love made is left to reek the bed
where sexless wife and lonely daughter
   Lay their head's arrest.

In due time they both tan, sag and crackle
Under weight of the sun.

That dizzy cyclops that roped forth
homecoming boats and ships stands
five years from being defunct; rusted
to the hue of a coppice
and hardly the attraction it once was

But oh well— sighs the sailor, too old and bankrupt to care
for approaching poverty— the money has been made and my life spent

For others (his Sister, his Niece, his Brother)
They lack the ability to sigh;
the closest they get is the occasional stormy wind
that cracks the surface, blows through their teeth
resembling a crooked lullaby,
Revolves the bullet lodged in their skull;
O occasional stormy rain that beshrews the water
clogging their lungs and, in due time, The leaking muck
that’ll pluck and sharply snap inward the casketwood--
directly against the bullet gathhering mold in their heart--

Their souls have been spent.
One less soldier wouldn't have changed a thing
(The result was a certainty propagated
   as a contingency)
And if G-d bare'd witness his eyes no longer sting,
  His grievances had and his puppets dead
Following a suffering in his name.

If Thy Kingdom holds true
They bare witness now to the lighthouse
In it's chipping hue, it's trivial dock and visitor
Silhouettes—

All held in place and burning; They disfigure
Under weight of the sun.