A Soldier's Poem

A Soldier's Poem

A young man's back is broken down,
When an old man trods on another's ground.
He is stripped of self and sense of place,
The rigor chisels his uncut face.

He bows to beasts that rear with pride,
He's forced to take his homeland's side.
He awaits with angst the day of fate,
Bullets and borders to puppet Man and state.

The order sounds but no one hears;
The hardest men pray prayers through tears.
The air is thick, the sky is black.
Men fall to his front, and run at his back.

The young man, now old and grey,
Recalls the rolls of fate that day,
And the faces of many men who died -
Before their time, for another's pride.

-E.p.
© 2009


yes I meant "rolls" of fate rather than "roles"