Half Mast

A calling that must be obeyed-- bloodied and broken he lies, the battlefield he makes his home, fallen like a gladiator of Rome, hearing his brother’s last cries-- with a bullet in his heart he dies. Oh the artist he could have made, even Picasso would he surpass-- a gentle brush stroke brings life, instead he sleeps by his knife, all the medals he would amass-- his bloody world of iron and brass. There was music in his soul-- a prodigy like Mozart in his youth, his name would live on for ages, as his composition floods the pages-- then we ask what is really uncouth, taking innocent lives or concealing the truth. A more fortunate man digs a deep hole, the last few pages of a journal revealed-- as Vienna in the time of Shakespeare, he could never really find his place here-- death upon words that would have healed, here lies the warrior poet in an open field.