Disastrous! Catastrophic!
The slums of no man’s land on the eve of the Somme,
Hyperthermia gripping very men’s souls and dragging them to the grave,
The terrified, puny regimentals that remain stand vigilant,
French countryside devastated by unrelentless artillery fire,
The blood of the innocent saturates the very earth,
Fear and adrenaline grasp the remaining animated carcasses,
Countless leave over the top, very few ever return,
Mechanical, monstrous, mind numbing thunder shatters the battlefield,
The night sky lights up with flashes of instant death,
Any who come home are changed for all eternity,
Until their lifeless corpses lay rest in the mud.