The Distiction Of Soldiers Poem by Faith Wood

(this was a poem written for an IB World Literature paper based on the book All Quiet on the Western Front. Some lines are taken directly from the book. these are in quotes and are worked into the poem accordingly.)

The enemy lines are blurring from this view
'Here in the trenches they are completely lost to us, '
just like our memories.
We are dead,
but all the same, we are Iron Clad-
the 'Iron youth'
But we’ll never get these years back,
'We are old folk' now.

And it’s not these wounds that are ever-lasting-
it’s the sound of the gun shots,
the dying friends,
the secrecy we keep
when ghosts haunt our bedsides.
These holes are too shallow,
the bullets- bees in my ears
and I’m forever stained in these clothes.

“So then what exactly is the war for? ”
we ask not expecting an answer
The comradeship has kept us united here,
but in yet, our stares are blank and indifferent.
In one single instant,
We realize what we’ve become-
'forlorn like children,
and experienced like old men.'
Gun in hand, I whisper
“I believe we are lost.”

The armistice will never wait
for this generation to come home
In a sense, I am part of the trench
and it, a part of me.
The battlefield is the scene of my dreams
I clasp my eyes shut tight,
but the explosions are ingrained there
and 'I know nothing more.'