The hiss of the turned-on wireless,
and the crackle of radio-telephony;
the swish of the high-velocity bullets,
as
they crack, then
lodge;
with dull thuds;
sounding almost like mortar duds;
on
the trunks of trees,
their stems, and
their billowing canopies over-head
Cries,
of
pain
of
the half-living, the wounded,
and the limbless
The opaque silence
of
the H-hour,
and the dreams of the very dead
The sighs of relief of the still full-bodied
Recapitulating;
the grotesque and the gnarled corpses,
rotting: the sweet stench
amidst the pocked blast-pits of the cunningly
camouflaged M-16s;
trip-wired, primed, and ready to jump,
in
the mixed protective mine fields ahead
The war-cries of the poor bloody Infantry;
as
they go over the hill;
for the close-quarter-battle,
and probably an RV with the apocalyptic-horseman,
riding shame-faced-ly,
amongst the trodden, fallen and the most-irreversibly dead;
with clanging-tank, now generally hull-down, spitting
tracer and shot in the morale-boosting role
and the gunners out of contact with their guns
they charge the cowering enemy,
by
now, shuddering, quivering;
the chattering of their teeth quite distinctly audible
despite their low-decible wave-length,
over the staccato din;
and the stuttering of the Brownings, the Mag-58s, the SPMGs,
and
the light machine guns
Holes,
in
the bunkers;
And, in the far distance
in
the war-weary various B-echelons
the sound of muffled drums
and bugles too far away
far away
synthesising the later-than-last lullaby,
for the lads laid out slumbering,
snoring to the cosmic rhythm
ensconced with-out the fourth dimension,
in
time-capsules,
for ever and for ever
Further in the rear,
the motley crowd of
ragged relatives, friends, buddies
and
unshaven, semi-literate priests, chant the last rites
like half-awake Zombies;
also whimper and snivel,
with the constant low wails of veiled war-widows,
having toddlers at the breast
The sounds of war resonate through the cosmos,
cassetted,
both in the audio,
and video,
on
the hard disk
of
my heart,
and my dull throbbing head
