Gary Fellows - Boy Soldier

Inspired by research into my grandfather's brother, who fell on 9th October 1917. Thought I would submit this today as it is Remeberance Sunday.


A harsh breeze blows on their soft faces
No trees left for wind to whistle through
The Captain’s blow redresses the deficit
Orders from above or rather from behind

Down the wire the signals come
On the wire their lives balance precariously
But to reach those barbs they will fail today
Three weeks of rain await decisions insane

The first battle of Passchendaele doth wait
A third attempt on the Ypres line
No lessons learned it seems clear as day
Despite the obvious impending Quagmire

Over the top, just one more push they say
They’ve heard it all before we know
Not least for Private Peter Tighe of the great
Lancashire Fusiliers, Battalion two eight

Soldier, you’ve done it all before
The Somme, Arras and Vimy Ridge
Witnessed such appalling atrocities
Stayed alive all but to delay your fate

And now you don’t stand a chance
A sitting duck for the guns of the Hun
Stuck in the mud is no longer a game
Machines of death, the bullets do rain

Even the enemy can see the folly
Shameful fingers pulling shameful triggers
Their bloody work seen through tear-soaked eyes
This is naught but pitiful slaughter they cry

Cannon fodder it’s often said of they
Our boys on the front will save the day
Soon there’ll be a last drawn breath
A telegram of ironic regrets of death

And later, the gathering of parts inhumane
From an abstract mosaic of an abstract story
Marked and matched as best one can
To be thrown beneath a tablet marked ‘Glory’

Gary Fellows

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/boy-soldier-2/