Manly Manure

Thin days get thinner

And the wind winds the time

Pigeons carry letters

Over the enemy lines

Verey lights bathe nocturnal plains

Where stark shadows haunt the night

The whistling shell, a shooting star

Rushes to meet the dirt

And christens us with shrapnel

And flying clumps of Earth

Once limbs & guts are splattered all

Silence hums, like a dirge

We spiral down in madness

When snipers blow us their kiss

Muzzle flashes, twisting darkness

Full of cold frontier justice

But its the same, in all frankness

Everyone's got a license to kill

Out there in the no man's land

We run in terror on thick mud

Throw our grenades, guns in hand

Until we drop dead with a thud

And nourish the poppies, fate commands

With our crimson pools of blood

If by chance we return intact

We light our lamps, write our wives

Send them all our earnings back

Before we turn to our beds of lice

And we dream of home, such moonless nights

When the front is lit by Verey lights

 - By Ritvij.  22/12/22. At home, Raebareli.