Unheard

“All a poet can do today is warn” (Wilfred Owen)

(i)

A shame we never listened to that poet

who drank the poisoned well of human feeling;

who fell into the field of wounds and bled.

(ii)

The soldier: now, the victim, not the hero;

who's led to die in men-filled abattoirs

the size of towns; worth less than condemned meat.

(iii)

Sing out! Sing out! Sing out! You Hymns of Hate!

You half-rhymed words of warning! Tell the men

who fight: you are the enemy you kill.

(iv)

The final insult to The Dead. We fight;

we maim; we kill: as if you never died.

As young men’s years are all undone. Again.