This Man’s War
written by: Andrea Walker
Every night the war raged
Until the first light of dawn
Only then was he released
As he awoke with a yawn
At his allotment all was neat
His vegetables stood to drill
It kept his mind occupied
The daylight hours he’d fill
And as he worked God’s rich soil
He’d try his hardest to forget
The comrades he’d helped bury
And the tortured ends they’d met
He’d returned from war no more the man
But a battle torn weary soldier
Nobody recognised him anymore
He was beleaguered and so much older
In two short years he’d lost his light
The horror’s he’d bore witness
And as his battle raged at night
It was like a mental sickness
His wife, when he eventually met her
Grew used to his nocturnal fights
His shouts of No! Stop! I beg you!
That shattered them both most nights
He was still locked within his prison
The cold walls of Auschwitz
Or sometimes a different setting
He’d relive the bombings of the blitz
His teenage years were fractured
He lost his family to a bomb
So he’d enrolled to take revenge
No idea of what was to come
He’d been captured fairly quickly
Had worked their dirty foreign earth
Kept his head down and was muted
Survived, for all that was worth
And soldiers upon returning
Were expected to just get on with life
So he’d tried to do as they wanted
Had found himself a wife
And she didn’t deserve his moods
Nor the silences he extolled
She tried to help him heal
But all her attempts had failed
And the children when they came
Grew to quickly learn the truth
That it was a forbidden subject
To ask about their dad’s youth
He loved them in his own way
The only way he could
And every day he set off out
To dig amongst his mud
He grew blooms of such beauty
And vegetables that he’d sell
And they earned just about enough
For a pleasant life to dwell
But every night he dreaded
Trudging up those carpeted stairs
And the horrors that awaited
Within his worst nightmares
And his wife lay in the darkness
Holding his body full of sweat
As he twisted and turned and shouted
With the memories he couldn’t forget
And life carried on, as it does
The children grew older and left
Eventually he was on his own
He felt lonely and bereft
And no matter how much he ached
He still tended to his patch of soil
It was the only thing that helped
With his perpetual mental turmoil
Till one day he felt a pain
Saw hands reaching out
And as he fell to the ground
He sensed his comrades were about
Stand down soldier!
His captain whispered close by
There’s nothing to fear now
For you it’s a last goodbye
And when they finally found him
His spade lay across his chest
Like the gun he’d held in battle
It too was laid to rest
At the burial that followed
He was given the service of a soldier
A flag lay across his coffin
Finally this man’s war was over
- This Man’s War - June 14, 2025
- Laid Bare - March 22, 2025
- Mirror Mirror - December 1, 2024
