The Aftermath

Morbid figures unfurl in the dust
their pastel cheeks, burnt liquid black.
Stained, with the febrile sweat
of a bitter, twisted carnage.

They weep, wasting beneath the shadows,
and even the gunshots fail
to stifle the screams
that echo through the dead abyss

The swathing darkness cannot mask it,
that stale, sweet stench of dying flesh
It rakes at my body
with severed, clawing hands

as steaming, disheveled corpses,
drown in warm, velvet blood
strewn atop the crumbling soil,

An honourable end.