Round two sounds the bell,
Flesh wounds are new.
It blisters.
**** filled sores.
The wait begins.
“How long will it be?
Perhaps an hour.
Wait! Perhaps—
Perhaps they wouldn't come.
Yes! My way out of it all.
A hero’s escape.
They just couldn't get me in time.
Maybe I’ll die in the wait—
I’d rather die in hope.
Alas, the stretcher of life comes.
**** it.
I live to fight another day.”

Through the haze of dust came
The miraculous love.
Love brought vapors of sweet befores.
“Ahh the smell,” thought he, “This be the
Temptation of youth.” Girls doused in
Thick smell: summer’s scented sand.
T’was not many girls, but one. One who
He loved—He fathomed possible.
Soap and towel, given for the purge.
Dunked in baptismal waters,
But the earth was resilient.
The details are in the fabric.
The fabric is in the details.
Was it his stitching, or the towel’s?
imprinted with a thorny crown.

Georg lay waste to sharp shrapnel pangs.
The hand of Simon reached, gripping
The leatherneck deformity
Off the forsaken war floor.
Spitting slurred speech he raged to Georg
“Take my hand Comrade! Do not wait!
Gas is coming, can not you taste?”
Georg could taste the thicket of dust.
The dust preyed upon him—his youth.
Under cover the two discussed,
The pains of war—the loves they lost.
“I loved my wife” spoke he: Simon.
“I loved my books,” Spoke he: Georg.
“I loved my faith,” Spoke he: Simon.
“Tell me Simon, what good is faith?”
“I know not why—I just hold it.”
“I hold far too much don’t you see?
My father’s will doth burden me.
Besides, what of faith here entrenched?
They let us carry dead men, but
What of faith? I ponder this so.
Should not faith carry us comrade?
Oh how the faith has lost its weight.
Trust me comrade faith will not save.”

Mother may I, take two steps forward?
Mother may I, come to your bedside?
Mother may I, tell you of the torture?
Mother may I, request a sweet lullaby?
Mother may I, plant understanding?
Mother may I, ever cross the sea?
Mother may I, keep on exploring?
Mother may I, drift away from thee?
I may, mother, drift across the bar.
I may, mother, sink beneath the storm.
I may, mother, find God over par.
I may, mother, be whole yet still torn.
I may, mother, be gloried yet pained.
I may, mother, be generationally *****.
I may, mother, be lost and not found.
I may, mother, be within—without.

A young heart blisters raw with war,
And a young mind wonders nevermore.
A young man stands upon the hinge of glory,
And a young man fights his history.
A young body ails in the pouring rain,
And a young body weeps with cold estrange.
A young spirit is condemned to death,
As a young spirit bears the cross of the rest.