My father told me of the dread of war:

the stink of battle,

bodies, blood,

limbs, heads,

disposability,

all strewn across

the hazy field of relentlessness.

 

He told me about the boys,

for he was there and saw

the terror mixed with vomit,

the brandy to make than strong,

and the noise bursting,

the reverberant screams and

then silence across

a darkening landscape of

inescapable questions about

why this is so,

but they feared to ask.

 

My father told me in

scattered soft words,

infrequent and strained,

now inscribed,

but I was too young to

grasp the moral scale

of sending young men to die

for the sake of empire, ambition,

and the lingering curse of the strong

men who believe they are right.

 

Would that he be alive and I

now of a ripe age might sit with him

and sip brandy from the same glass,

and ask about these

young men and what he knew

of the dread of war

painted on a black sky.

 

11/12/2025