More boy then
Then a man now
I still remember when
I first tasted mud as blood ran from my brow

In those fields
Where tunnels led to hell
So much innocence yields
For whom tolls the bell

From Verdun to the Somme
I left a piece of me bit by bit
When you cried Mutti I cried mom
While your throat was slit

And with my will broken
I wait for the whistle to call
And run to horrors unspoken
While brothers die and I fall

Deeper into darkness
As the shrapnel kisses us and bites
There is never a moment of stillness
And evil light illuminates our nights

When I do sleep and find dreams
The horrors sometimes do subside
And there is sweet silence where no one screams
When I awaken teary-eyed wishing to have died

But I live as a husk
Deprived of its core
Day or night are all dusk
Waiting what hell is left in store

My splendid youth
My grandiose ideals
Are traded in for a horrid truth
Choked to death by this reality’s heels

We marched for greatness
And fell into this reality
We wish for sedateness
As we crawl through human remains pits and debris

Will the guns never grow silent
When will my time be at an end
Is a man at his core only violent
Will we ever amend

For we are the forlorn of no man’s land
Who will never return home
As we followed orders by those who demand
They who do come back have shellshock syndrome

They left behind what was
Once a young man or boy
We who thought of flowers and applause
Only became a generals toy

And in the trenches of the lost
In the moments of needless sacrifice
We who could never pay the cost
Saw no red poppy nor edelweiss

We saw everyday evil
Stretched to its limits and beyond
The trenches were in constant upheaval
For every enemy action we must respond

How much for a yard
How many for a trench
All who fought were marred
Fighting in deaths stench on the soil of the French

I did not return
Angels finally silenced my hell
This lesson we will never learn
War never ends well