The world is ending in fields of blood and wire,
Drowning in mud and noise and machines,
The nameless dead and the haunted living,
War for a new age and a new race.
War without valour,
A random war,
Taking life by chance and luck,
Not by strength and skill.
This war steals fathers from children,
Husbands from wives,
Not by ones and twos,
But by the thousandth,
The millionth,
And in the blink of an eye.
Death stalks the living,
A cruel and vengeful thing,
Hiding in dreams and memory,
Stealing laughter and joy,
With the distant sounds,
Of gunfire and the roaring shells.
This is not war with bloody swords,
And broken shields,
This is war of relentless marching,
Of endless advance, retreat, advance.
A raw war of shattered lives,
And bodies strewn in bits,
Across the battlelines.
This is not a glorious war,
This is the death of men,
And the birth of machine.
A thousand thousand slaves,
To cogs and oil,
Among mud, surrounded by wire,
Bathed in blood,
Marching to the tune of guns and shellfire.
War of metal, war of steel,
Bloody, muddy, rotten war,
A war that will change the world,
A war they never will forget,
A Great War, a First War, a World War,
Never the Last War.
Author notes
This doesn't have a specific structure or rhythm, its basically as it comes and as it came to me in my head.
Comments
-
Interesting, and I thought that the majority worked well APART from the end, which, in contrast to the deepening thoughts used throughout the rest of the poem, seem weak and unecessary.
Those being;
"A Great War, a First War, a World War,
Never the Last War."
I understand that you were just trying to show the different types of war, but, something about it just weakens the poem for me - yet at this moment, I can't quite put my suggested improvements to words. May return later and see if I am thinking any more coherently
-
Thats a really good poem....the flow could be better but the topic and stuff is really good. My fav lines are
This is not war with bloody swords,
And broken shields,
This is war of relentless marching,
Of endless advance, retreat, advance.
anyhow great write
Adding your comment:
