Small hands grasp mine
Pudgey fingers soft
Like cotton balls in silk
For a moment I have returned
To a past I wished had never ended
Now a sodden handkerchief lies in my hands
Guns fired
Empty words floated towards me
Lifelessness overpowers me
To soon you’re gone
To late the cry to stop
Brave were you
Loved to well
Your country and your fellow man
If you had been a worse man
A liar and a cheat
You’d still be here
Not housed in the earth
That you fought so hard for
Dust to dust
Ashes to ashes
Children in heaven
Parents in Hell
All for the price of freedom
Voices of mothers in torment
Echoing the whine of the rifles retort
As their children fall
To appease the God of blood and carnage