Flanders fields frantic insanity

Boys directed in interlinked sewers.

Motionless corpses stinking

Those drawing breath doubt any future.

Zombied  children from towns and villages

In a hell where serendipity refuses to exist

Fear the nearing thump, thud of mortar shells

As if giant footfalls – approach to stamp out life.

Hugging slimy bespattered trench walls

Shell shocked minds tremble by the second

A last prayer again, while shaking hands light the cigarette

Bladders gripped tight in response to the sergeant’s whistle.

Over the top

Means run till you drop

Many dance the head shot backward slip

Their mighty screams lost to the living

Fierce, rifles crackle bullets indiscriminate of pain

flaming thunder flashes explode

Everywhere in horrific un-patterned regularity

Once dearly loved ones have their lives ripped out.

Within a few hundred yards

Screams of the dead and dying

Bodies spurting crimson, limbs flail

So many fall in spontaneous curtsies.

Machine guns wreak their steaming havoc

Barbed wire shivers while the Generals swagger stick

Roughly counts the losses. Heavy guns tear the fabric of air

Sixty pounders seek infantry replacement columns.

Each new marching sapling soldier

In terror learns the meaning of futility.