The Soldier With The Faraway Eyes Poem by Paul Warren

The Somme bled men white
With bullets and shrapnel flying about in the day and night
And he had survived in body alone
When death was the constant companion he had known

They had found him in the German trench line
With his platoon dead and in such a bind
A shell splinter had pinned him to the wall
The rain came filling the trench fast in its fall

So he waited while the water was rising fast
Not being able to move frighten he would not last
Next his mates carefully levered him out
And stretchered him whilst he yelled delirious shouts

Back to the Casualty Clearing Station
Where he lay staring ahead with a glassyexpression
He was sent to Blighty to recover
His wounds healed but emotionally he was lost forever

Years later I met him in a soldiers home
The soldier with the faraway eyes as he was known
And when he was near water at all
He would scream and shout in his frightening call.

© Paul Warren Poetry