the groaning guns

The battlefield grew thick and tall
with future corpses marching on
as antsily as ordered ranks of hivelike
single-purposed mind could tramp. They itched
like hives, for trigger-pull - not owing

to some bloodless lust for death, but
going mad in dread suspense, anxiety
for us, for everything they'd put
behind, and left for past. They all
had come
to stand
and march
and stand
some more, or

fight.
If push
could ever come to that, they've come
prepared for that, and more. They've come
to face the future looking back
with haunted eyes, in baby face
grown only days or weeks more old.
Or months,
or years
- or maybe gone
to early graves

before they have the chance to pull
the lever back, to crack boom wide
in sundering of bone and skull.

With sudden cleft, the world
gave in. Relieved them of
their dread suspense, in thundering

of groaning guns - the higher-ups
were misinformed by enemy
intelligence. Come let us all

support the troops.

Whichever side
has fielded them. They grow as deep
and thick as flies,
regardless of the flags they flew,
regardless of the loves they knew,
regardless of the future now,

with haunted eyes
they never had a chance

to grow into.