Inevitable Conclusion. Poem by ivor or ivor.e hogg

Grey figures moving in the mist
that rolls across the battlefield
Although long dead they still persist
and stubbornly refuse to yield

The can’t go back and won’t move on
perhaps convinced they’re still alive.
So they still wander woebegone
they’ve given all they had to give.

They still have hope although in vain.
That they will wake up from their dream
and be set free to live again.
To see once more the bright sun beam.

I wander with my pen in hand
I try to record how I feel
I do my best to understand.
I hear somehow their mute appeal.

On holiday in Flanders fields
I write my journal every day.
Each battlefield I visit yields
more ghostly figures in the grey

of swirling slowly fading mist.
Evaporating in the sun
I can do nothing to assist.
But if I could I would have done.

Almost a century has passed
since that great war to end all wars.
Still in the mists sad ghosts are massed.
But mankind has not changed his course.

He has evolved the means to kill
in greater numbers than before.
It seems that mankind lacks the will
to live in peace. He prefers war.