This poem is dedicated to those who lost their lives in the Great War, and to those who came home with wounds which couldn’t be seen.

A boy gazes at posters of Union Flag unfurled,  
with hopes to make his mother proud and be a man of the world.  
He dreams of being a hero, medals pinned to his chest, 
and with age unchecked, he takes up arms and flies the nest.

The ‘dear old flag’ in his mind and cheering in his ear, 
couldn’t soothe the shock of the shell, the mud, blood, and fear.
The boy’s mind crumbled, when he foresaw his mother grieve,
‘Home for Christmas’ was the lie he no longer believed.

The things that boy saw plagued his every dream,
each Mustard-gassed stare, and blood-curdled scream.
Blood from machine-gunned friends blended in the rain,
and left him hollow when he saw that dear old flag again.

He watched mass slaughter in a crucible of hate,
through barbed wire cuts, and a zipping, ripping, fate.
Through bogs and blood, his mind would ache, strain, then break,
‘til one day he had to flee, from what else lay in wait.

The Butcher sent him to Hell, then to the great beyond.
A broken boy marched to the post with a blindfold donned.
That shell shock was no excuse for the boy’s retreat,
the Butcher blamed his failures on the nature of the meat.

Bullets broke his heart, after his leaders broke his faith
in that bloodied flag and John Bull; the broken man’s wraith.
Boys and men were murdered for King and Country’s sake
in a hopeless cause, a futile war of ruthless mens’ make.

They now have their pardons, though 90 years too late.
Loved by God, though shunned by the leaders who sealed their fate.
All those souls lost by Haig, the Butcher of the Somme,
they rest beneath the stars, lost to bullet, gas and bomb.

One day each year they live on, and then are gone, once more,
remembered on the silver screen, then forgotten, once more.
On that day their state of grace is remembered, once more,
then the recruitment drives, and leaders’ lies play out, once more.

And so more are sent off to wars of heartless leaders’ make,	
to be shattered and broken, for patriotism’s sake.
Failed by those same leaders who let them sleep on the street.
discarded, lost in nightmares, considered obsolete.

And again, new calls for ‘boots on the ground’ will replay.
and new troops are left scarred, as the ones who always pay.
And again, the press forgets its role in the blood spilled each day.
as history repeats itself; unlearned and unswayed.

Lest we forget, again, and again, and again.

© M.T. O'Neill

“In war, there are no unwounded soldiers.”

José Narosky

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