Indiana Shaw Poet Couplet

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The Forgotten Soldier

The train trundles on, leaving behind at each station a soldier with his own past
Heavyweight in its endeavours portraying its only passengers as its un-holy cast

Each face a palpable grey, their blackened eyes sunken within their vast sockets
Each sat at their given seats characteristically sullen, with their hands in pockets

One only feels the coldness, within each carriage that descended upon them all
As not one ice breath plume emanating from the mouths, or nostrils did sprawl

Lifeless grey of their eyes gave nothing away of their hell, or of the horrors seen
Of a war where no real moral understanding is ever found for any of us to glean

Each un-sung hero now taking his last journey home, each to its own eternal life
Each one given their own time to offload their burdens of the unforgivable strife

Only once the reality of what has happened did the train lessen its speed to halt
As the one last soldier left his seat, then upon the platform made his last assault

He was going home now, but with no lessening of the grey pallor within his eyes
His home a cold grave now, lying under the darken un-forgiving, harrowing skies

He had fought for his country with an unquestionable honour, lay now as forgot
His remains under a white ensign Portland headstone buried within its own plot

A young man with no wife, or child, just parents themselves long gone deceased
His secrets of the war held within this mound of earth remains to all unreleased

So if passing a graveyard, and upon your eyes a lonely regimental grave you see
Place a flower of remembrance and set a well-earned soldier from his sleep, free

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