Sunday, March 16, 2008

Old Soldier: Dedicated to Harry Patch, WWI Veteran, aged 109.



Old Soldier.


The old man could not

demonstrate the odd mechanisms

that drove his mind asunder.

His lips kept quiessitude among

the trenches of muddy secrets -

of the war and other great wars,

both then and now.


His hands, scarred as his memories,

of personal love and crucifixion;

among all ephemeral experiences.

Words, lacking volume in the

throat of an ageing voice,

collecting from bloody salad days,

vexacious in manner and thought,


and the sudden appeal of devout

truth, finds a frail resurrection,

admitting passion and appal,

in the face of the Almighty,

who's power did not intercede

as expected,

and that unlike those friends


whose dying hands he held...

for God knows what reason

he had alone survived beyond

one hundred,

and for this awkward fact had

never forgiven nor forgotten

any of it.


Christopher James Rhodes.

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