BATTLES END

There is no winner
At battles end,
The bones of armour
Covered by a shroud of flags.
Shield and sword
Lie together in death,
Blood soaked and beaten
Monuments to the fallen.
The grim lifeless forms
Pulse their last,
Broken men whimper
Crawling in agonized circles.
Crows pluck at opaque eyes
Their dark hunched forms cackling,
Whilst dogs sniff and salivate
At the banquet of corpses.
A stillness of heaving intensity
Pervades the sodden charnal field,
Horses stand with heads bowed
Quietly steaming in equine prayer.
A mosaic of limbs gather
Stacked in cruel abandon,
At the foot of a blood soaked banner
The futility in gory evidence for all.
Birdsong pierces the stillness
Trees sway to a new breeze,
As the earth endeavours
To wash the scars of battle away.
Forever tears at battles end
Wives and children lead the dirge,
Whilst leaders sit in ivory halls
Washing the blood from their mind.
"It shall end all wars" they say
Til the next one starts afresh,
New men are scythed and butchered
And the spattered banner flies over the battles end.

Phil Hall  January 2014