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Nineteen Seventeen
A crop of prairie farmer’s sons
Ground deep into the soil
Had snatched a muddy fifty-yard
Advance through barbwire coil
Staccato red and daylight white
Concussions overhead
Maybe they were gaining ground
Or maybe they were dead
Their desperate trajectory
A perfect stunning blast
Rejoined by fire in the shell
And caustic mustard gas
The withered flanks at crater’s edge
Downwind from poison breeze
By daybreak had to sacrifice
The twisted charcoal trees
The only one with vision saved
From green and yellow fog
A battle crazy officer
Was singing to his dog
He called to Newton panting like
A jackal in the sun
What say, old boy? Your master prays
You haven’t come undone
He lit a skinny cigarette
And stroked the matted hair
Then he asked the scruffy mutt
To lead them out of there
Damn the British! Curse the Germans!
Screw the blasted French!
A pox on homebound patriots
Who stayed out of this trench
A fortnight on the western front
Striped off the thin disguise
The hand to shoulder human train
Marched home without their eyes
[Jan 19, 2005]
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The
Poetry of Daniel Harrison