Boys of War by Presley Forrest
West Coast Eisteddfod Online Poetry Competition 2017
From: Son Of History
...
We are soldiers donned in blue and gray,
Silhouettes etched by carving sun.
We are born in light and pass in darkness.
Blood within my veins flows as it did before,
But I don’t feel it anymore.
Everyone is formed with flowers inside them,
Vines that twist around their hearts,
And in the army we cut our stems,
The roses wilt inside our chests.
Nightmares of bullets have passed,
There is not sensation within my breast.
Fingers curl at the dirt beneath,
As we lay between chaos and a dream.
The sky begins to swallow our souls,
I stare at the only colors I’ll ever know.
Death takes many men who fight blood crafts,
We take last breaths with spoiled spirits
And numb bones destined to weep.
You eventually forget what you are fighting for,
You only have shame, and shame and shame.
No matter how luminous you can shine,
How the flames look across your skin,
You’ll end up charred, obscure and burnt.
The meadow sang out in fading smoke and bullet ash,
Butterflies within my stomach turn to wasps.
I am not the only one,
The only being,
The only boy,
Who seeks meaning in their last sunset.
In my last collection of memories,
I yearned for silence.
For gunfire to cease and the dust of war to resist.
I lay atop a lonely hill,
With blood on my hands
and fabric of the skies still reflecting in my eyes.
There is no beauty here,
Tongues do not discover words they wish to speak.
Come to me,
Battles stole my soul,
I am where the flowers are.
Come to me,
I know the art of war,
I live among a garden now.
Come to me,
Where petals scatter across my body.
Come to me,
You’ll witness the dirt in my nails,
As I scratched myself from fate.
Come to me,
I dreamt only of home,
In these,
My last moments of hope.
I am gone for an eternity.
Come to me,
darling,
for this is war.
updated by @ceri-shaw: 11/24/19 06:16:51PM
