WAR

We fight our bloody battles, our Sommes and Passchendaeles.

We drop the bombs and tell our gory tales

of sacrifice and valour.

And when it's over we count the silent army of the dead,

the hordes of living wounded, mutilated men,

women and children who will never be the same again.

We find some rationale in all of this by arguing the case

that there’s no other way.

We give them every chance to save some face

but in the end we have to win the day

against the despots of this world.

For right is might and has to triumph in the end.

But the horror and the grief will live for ever and will never go away.

God you could have have spared us this-

given those poor sods, those innocents, a chance to live

a normal, decent, happy life, but no....

you really stack the odds against us one way and another.

Our father which art in heaven

DEFINITELY NOT MOTHER

© ben Corde 2012