Guerre De Trenches
Who waits on tomorrow when today is barely tolerable?
greet the sun
and the light
Green leaves,
Warm brown bark.
How many dawns will see them still,
as they have always been?
It happened a century past.
See the Black Hand. See Ferdinand.
See war born of nothing.
The young men crawl hopeless toward the trenches.
Suffocation. Putrification.
This generation sacrificed and abandoned,
lost,
came creeping home broken. The false embrace
of nations (named hero, enslaved by honor)
pestilence brought horror,
gave mercy.
You never really leave the trenches.
one hundred years passed.
Nothing lasts,
less changes.
See the Black Hand. See his glove over rot.
See war born of nothing.
The young crawl hopeless through the trenches
suffering; they open
the same sore
again and again and again.
The gangrenous wound and the wasted bodies,
bits of cotton, syringes, half smoked cigarettes,
corpses and half grown desperate children-
none are named hero,
all are slaves to the horror.
This generation came creeping home, broken.
Embraced by no one,
ever-
sacrificed and abandoned and lost.
Pestilence, again
there is no mercy.
You never really leave the trenches.
How can these kids fail so miserably at life?
They live as if the future doesn't exist.
You work and work and work.
Your entire adult life you never had anything.
Nothing lasts,
less changes.
You lose it all,
you lose it all.
You already knew
the particular, singular agony of the Hand.
Fingers dig in straight through your gut
and take hold of your spine- the grip,
The intense rip and wrench,
and wrench
and wrench.
You look at your poor sweet dog
(soft ears, heavy sleepy paws)-
why is innocence so agonizing?
Transcendence is just hopelessness.
Who waits on years?
Days are the home of the barely not
starving; the future is for the wandering
passed. We know
the present-this supposed gift.
The world,
the world will burn so beautifully.
We never even made it out of the trenches.
Copyright © Megan Swell | Year Posted 2021
Post Comments
Poetrysoup is an environment of encouragement and growth so only provide specific positive comments that indicate what you appreciate about the poem. Negative comments will result your account being banned.
Please
Login
to post a comment