They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them.

Some people don’t want to remember. Some would rather distance themselves from the reality of it all… And those people are born to make the same mistakes again…

Keeping The Distance

Beneath this earth young warriors sleep

Forever more, forever more,

And for what myth was it they died,

Who sent them here forever?

To bury them, so far away

From farm and village, hearth and soil?

We dare not ask of why or how,

We dare not think too hard of them!

We need not question of ourselves,

Of how we let them go so far,

So we may keep our distance safe

Can paint their pictures in our mind

Of how they sacrificed their lives;

Of how they died so willingly,

On land that did not give them birth,

Noblesse Oblige, they sleep the earth.

We know they did not wail or scream,

Nor cry nor piss their pants in fear!,

They did not spill their crimson guts

Through gaping wounds of steel-sliced flesh,

Or stare in numbness at their blood

That pulsed and squirted, stained the soil.

We know they did not weep for mother,

Nor curse their fate nor bawl in pain,

Or seek to find their missing limbs,

While dragging stumps through fiery ground,

Or smelled their own flesh, burning stench!

Nor whimpered soft through blood blind eyes,

As whistling breath through gaping throats

Shot out their life in scarlet spurts.

We do not wish them here at home

To find eternal, lasting sleep,

No, better stay in foreign lands,

Where they sacrificed their life,

No, t’is better they remain unseen,

To keep their distance and our dream

To keep them heroes, sight unseen,

For sure, they died as noble men,

Not terror-stricken sons and boys,

For if this myth were proved untrue,

How could we ever face ourselves?

How could we ever…be so cruel?



Curtis D Bennett