My Poetry. The Memory.

An old man rested on the vandalised bench,
His mind violently snatched back to the trench.
Battering, pounding, screaming, and death,
Was all he could hear in a single, ragged breath.
Blood-curdling sounds from all different angles,
Bombs from machines, contorted and mangled.

Never a moment of true peace in that hell on Earth,
Just the echoing voices, tossing in his berth.
When will this endless fighting finally end?
Will my life be like this forever, obliged to defend?
Can I survive this ordeal, to one day be free?
To listen to the birds singing in the high tree?

The explosions so near, he was terrified to sleep,
Praying to the Lord his ravaged soul to keep.
He recalled the mud that swallowed friend and foe,
The gnawing hunger, the freezing, endless snow.
He saw the young faces, brave but unprepared,
Every single sacrifice, tragically shared.
The relentless, choking smell of cordite and dust,
A broken trust between man and all that is just.

The old man wakened, sweating and scared,
From a nightmare so vivid, of none he compared.
When he looked around this desolate, saddened place,
He held that final question on his face:
Did he fight for his freedom? The truth he must assess—
Or was his sacrifice only for this pity of disgrace?

© William Sinclair Manson 2025