Always On Your Mind 1917 Poem by Terry Collett

I helped old Albert to his room
and he softy said:
sit a while,
I want to tell you something
I've told no one before.

So I sat in the chair
by his bed.

Mud, you would
never believe
the amount of mud;
bomb craters big and deep
filled with dirty;
men drowned in them
if they slipped off the boards
especially at night.

My friend Charlie
died like that:
wandered off and slipped
and drowned.
Knee high in places
and deeper in others.

Young men fresh out
to the Front
cried out when dying
for their mothers;
waiting to go over the top
when the whistle blew
you knew it was them or you.

He paused and stared at me
with glassy eyes.

Beyond the news
they broadcast home
was the dark reality of hell;
rats, lice, mud and blood
and dead mens' eyes and limbs
or bodies lying out in No Man's Land.

O yes, sometimes we sat
and smoked, laughed and joked,
thought of home and fire sides
and the girls we left behind;
but always the War
was on your mind.