The scent of oh purest carnage, familiar to these hills
My father hath traversed these lands decades before my birth
A century doth pass by, the veins of the earth entrenched with the millions of dead
So few have my eyes seen in passing of glory
The aesthetics of death painted upon the canvas of so bewildering a scene
All sensations seared, all of my compassion numbed
My humanity wrenched from behind my lungs
The lusts of my bayonet, in crimson display have spilled upon these hands
From beneath my helmet do I glare back in sickening approval of the malice we many have sewn
My mind sentient of no reason, my face caressed by this foreign wind
A pulmonary incantation writhes beneath these ribs, crying in blood drunk verse and beguiling my conscious thought
The how of descending mortar fire illuminates this blackest existence, a serenity wreathed in flame
The skies were beautiful as they burned
The dead roll over in their graves
Above the mortars, my ears discern my father screaming in his grave