UNTITLED

We’ve lain here for far too long,

Hoping the mist of time will not shroud our song,

We rest beneath a plain of green and red,

Remaining always in our sunken bed,

But bright shades did not always cloak our heads,

The cause of red was the mass bloodshed,

Only doomed men strode ‘cross our fresh grave,

The ground above was but for the brave,

No glorious tale is carved on our headstones,

No symbol marks our bones,

Only our fellow comrades, soldiers and men,

Can pass forth the account of what happened then,

We once shared in life, felt dawn, saw night,

Then came the horrific fight,

We sacrificed our life for the unknown,

At the enemy we were basically thrown,

Over the top of the crumbling berm,

Souls distort, we marched forth, firm,

Always under a dragons fire,

We advanced towards the tangled wire,

Friends fell by our sides, torn to shreds,

By the bullets, uncharted spreads,

Crouched close now to the twisted mesh,

It clung to our clothes and tore at our flesh,

A fellow ally knelt in final prayer,

Blood spreading through his auburn hair,

Others alike, trapped,

Caught, bound and wrapped,

Helpless, with life fleeing fast,

Torn to pieces by torment past,

As I looked down and realized the end,

Wounds so far beyond possible mend,

Anger and sadness were suddenly lost,

Like that bloody war and the lives it cost,

This was the tale of how we came to die,

How we left the world, with no goodbye,

How God left us to fight,

How we never reached to promised light,

How foolish we were to believe the lies,

And of the terrible final dieing cries,

How we thought we could win against those devils,

When we were on such similar levels,

How our final emotions were not of love for our England,

Or the feeling we achieved something so grand,

As the thanks of country and king,

Or the thought that people would sing,

Our glorious and somber song for years to come,

But of anger toward those officers of some,

Massive lack of feeling, that they could,

Sacrifice all us men, or even would,

Consider such a massive bloodshed,

And cause us to make our final bed,

In a land, not our home,

But here beneath the crumbled loam,

For all those men who did fight,

With courage and bravery of a knight,

And those, whose merciful lord pulled through,

And left them to live their life and grew,

We ask you to remember our anger and pain,

And never, ever, ever again,

Shed so much innocent blood,

And leave your dead to the mud,

And to remember the true event,

And never forget its lasting torment,

With all its somber desolation,

And resort to no abbreviation,

For memories, though bad,

Hold a message,, although sad,

“War is but the violent game of politics,

A foolish mix of unwise tricks.”

 

 

 

 

Catherine Gilliland