(Note: While this sort of treads into sensitive political current events areas, this is not a commentary on anything currently happing in our world. I don't write that kind of stuff. This is a simple battle poem, of which I seem to be on a kick of.)

Through the Mirk and the Mire

We stood in our ranks,

Having said our last thanks;

We were ready to die,

With ‘nets through our flanks.

-

The sun had yet to rise,

And the night we despise:

Not knowing which way to turn;

A greater torture no man could devise.

-

Then we heard a cry that made our blood chill;

The man beside me looking violently ill;

They were upon us, with no escape,

The creek with our bodies they meant to fill.

-

The first wave broke, and fifteen were lost,

Who knew our honor had such a bloody cost?

My legs grew weak and me hands went numb.

Through the mirk and the mire our defense was tossed.

-

Explosions went up to the left and right;

Lighting the darkness with harsh, deadly light.

Each moment I lived was one more of fear,

The bodies of friends fell through the night.

-

Through the smoke and the flame,

They came, they came;

And we fell one by one,

With our country to blame.

-

None of us here asked to be brought;

Just unlucky bastards who drew a bad lot.

But still we fell, we fall one by one,

At the end of the day, fifth company comes to naught.

-

Through the fires and ash,

They pass, they pass;

To leave us here dead,

Or under Death’s lash.

-

I breathe one last breath, for the sake of us all:

Who came here to fight, but fought and did fall.

The night now is ending, but my vision grows dim,

I hear a clear voice, my name as its call…

-

We did not ask to come here and die,

We did not ask, but they did not lie:

“War is brutal and grim, you might just fall.”

Well, I fell brutally, and now look upon a grim sky.

-

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,

Our uniforms picked clean, our guns all to rust.

If you take but one thing from this dead man’s rhyme:

Wage war not at all, but die when you must…