And Hell Followed With

The scent of oh purest carnage familiar to these hills.
My father hath traversed these lands decades before
my birth. A century doth pass by,
the veins of the earth entrenched with the millions
of dead. So few have my eyes seen in passing of glory.
The aesthetics of death painted upon the canvas of
so bewildering a scene. All sensations seared,
all of my compassions numbed.
My humanity wrenched from behind my lungs.
The lusts of my bayonet, in crimson display,
have spilled upon these hands.
From beneath my helmet do I glare back in sickening
approval of the malice we have sewn.
My mind sentiment of no reason,
my face caressed by this foreign wind.
A pulmonary incantation writhes beneath these ribs,
crying in blood drunk verse and beguiling my conscious
thought. The howl of descending mortar fire illuminates
this blackest existence, a serenity wreathed in flame.
The skies were beautiful as they burned.
The dead roll over in their graves.
Above the mortars, my ears discern my father screaming in his grave.