Bleeding feet.
Boot-soles torn in jagged stripes
on the fangs of the Barbed Wire fence.
Blistering lungs,
cruel as fire-
and hands and cheeks stung too
with the blazing breath of Mustard Gas
to singe the flesh right through.
And worst of all,
the bilious jangle of my fraying nerves
leaves my hands
in such an earthquake,
and makes the filthy throb of war
a dizzying blast of shrieks and jerks
that my thoughts fail to fly from.
Here, the only patch of green
is striped in the ravaged skin
of sickening soldiers;
all keen colour sullied over
for reeking mud and blood
and the last broiled strands
of hope and love.
