Shell Shock Poem by Colin Ian Jeffery

Shell shock is reaction to overwhelming terror producing
helplessness, flight, or inability to reason, sleep, walk or talk.
By the end of World War One the British Army dealt with
80,000 cases of shell shock, Including poets Siegfried
Sassoon and Wilfred Owen.


Soldier cowering
Overwhelmed, terrified
Weeping, body trembling
Hearing a scream
None but he can hear.

No longer able to fight
Desperate fleeing slaughter
Cannot stop weeping
Tries to stand, remains in the mud
Mind refusing to obey.

Mind protecting the body
Preventing the soldier
Fighting and killing
Trapping him in terror
Struggling for sanity in an asylum.