Those Days of Great Sorrow

As soldiers smoke a final cigar;

Their planes on the makeshift runways,

Their boats cast off,

And their rifles at bay;

Their sorrow filled hearts,

Of still to come haunting emotions,

Remember the time when articles rang out to them,

Complaining of an 'adventure' awaiting to be had.

Those straight-to-business trenches,

Dug day after day,

Those stale biscuits;

Rock hard to the tooth,

Those letters from home reminding of a past life,

Now distant from existence.

A shot fired,

Then two,

Then three,

Soldiers scatter; running in dread,

Not caring their uniforms be stained;

All thoughts are drowned by ever shredding fear.  

Their boots now thumping the ground,

To the rhythm,

Of a single heartbeat.

A craving soldier cast away in an abundant amount of time,

Was all he ever was to this war.

The sun sets,

As another war shed day goes by;

The bugles' last rings still fresh upon the ear.

A dozen new wounds scored;

Hellish memories ablaze instead of a lullabies name,

And fresh shock brought to the wounded and dying;

Every piece of justice now seems faint and priced.

No one seems to care,

If a friend or foe,

Ever returned back to a broken family.

The gun fire that still rang in a man's head,

Taunted at his very existence;

Even when his thoughts were closed.

A leftover bullet clutched in the hard skin of a young hand,

Became a souvenir to his little brother,

And a dead carrier pigeon gassed out in a trench,

Was not even sought after.

But then again every kind of hero deserves some disclosure;

Even if it is a grave.

A bright bunch of dazed red poppies,

Who's heads blow in an Autumns breeze,

Scatter themselves between,

The now white tombstones on an everglade.

That cruel insensitive colour of red signalling the end of a life;    

Something so small in stature,

Bringing a new meaning to death.

Those still fallen soldiers who march at dawn,

Badges pinned above the crests of their shirts;

Those women with sashes,

Worn across their delicate, now experienced chests;

The blood of hundreds upon each one's hands,

And tears of bewilderment in their eyes,

Still remember those days of great sorrow.