Trench Warfare
Trench warfare.
Blue moon
In fetid puddle.
Red poppy
In no mans’ land
Trench warfare.
Springs and summers
Endless.
Lovely bride
Where are you?
Trench warfare.
Stars above
Barbed wire.
I’ll be home
By Christmas
Trench warfare
Snow in hair.
Sunrise
Naked bodies.
Decomposing
Trench warfare.
Incoming shells.
Shrapnel, smells
Drifting sulphur
Dust in hair
Trench warfare.
Rat nibbles
Under Orion.
Dead toes!
Autumn leaves.
Trench warfare.
Bell from collapsed chapel
Cannot toll over
Flanders’ moonscape
At Christmas
Over the top!
Cloud covered moon.
Bayonets lowered
Charge to the pipes
Gone too soon!
Sunrise and summer solstice
Dew droplets.
Over the top!
Cloud covered moon.
Gone to their doom.
Desolate landscape
Angles and tunnels.
Not Stonehenge
Trenches in Europe
A Diachronic of war
Roar of biplane
Over trenches.
Fly boys wink wings
On the western front.
Christmas card.
Clear frost
On barrel sites.
Lee Enfield.
No Christmas pudding,
Smell of gangrene
Bridges
Over trench mud.
Duck boards
Mud parapets
And sand bags.
‘Stand to’
At dawn
Guns readied,
Snipers and sentries
On the fire step
Trench rats
Eat brother’s body.
No morgue,
Fungal infections.
Amputations.
Melted snow
From shell holes.
Dysentery
Glazed eyes
Shell shock
They perished
In all seasons
From diarrhea, fever
Bombs, shrapnel.
Broken hearts.