A Poem

Hail Fellow Well Met, Lest We Forget

A poem about a meeting between two men who had killed each other in battle

I deemed from the tunnel I had escaped, into the darkness, a crusader caped. Battered and bruised, scratched and scraped. A tawny owl looked down and gaped.

As I tore through bramble, bush and gorse, the thorny crown I wore looked worse, with blood and gore running down my face. But soon perchance and with god's good grace, I saw a citadel on the far horizon.

Fixed in my sights, I kept my eyes on a troop of idle sentinels. Stood stiff still guard, at a wishing well in the war torn yard. A well full to crumbling with humbling dreams, tumbling from the mouths of injudicious teens.

And by the token of oaths unspoken, I tossed in my lot with brothers in arms broken, in the hope that we, newly awoken, would rise once again and feel no pain as we traversed the unforgiving terrain.

“Hail fellow well met, lest we forget.” Said a voice I knew not, yet.....

Yet there was something about him I felt I knew, like the assailant from whom last night I flew, he seemed to know me, he knew me by smell and that is how I knew him as well. And at once I realised both were we in hell, not too far from where we fell.

Last night we died in vainglorious fight and our souls were lost to a futile night.

“Come, let us rest, its what we deserve, fighting for the countries and fools we serve. Let us rest long, into the night. Our day is done, no more shall we fight.”

And with that he was gone and I was alone, tired and afraid and far, far from home. I slept and I wept to the sound of a bell in some dingley dell they liked to call hell. Goodbye to the war that made us all take flight and tore us all apart with terrifying fright. Goodnight.

America Zed, Denise Larkin, Tony Young, Jr. Terry Mansfield, Dr John Rose, Dr Michael Heng, Henery X (long)