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