The Guns of August

It's over the top
In this war of attrition,
As waves of men throw themselves
At an unseen enemy.

Now's the time to lose life and limb,
We're all fodder for the cannons.
Inside no man's land,
This gas mask is the face of death.

A general, somewhere behind my head,
Challenges all his faithful troops —
"Come on you bastards,
You don't want to live forever, do you?"

"Leave the fallen behind,
Leave them where they lie,"
Inside a crater, tangled up in wire,
Or stuck behind enemy lines.

"We take no prisoners,"
When we're ducking for cover,
Ignoring white flags
Where salvation is surrender.

"We're all brothers in arms,"
Using the same bayonets,
Fielding each others' bullets,
And bearing the same scars.

We're the sons and daughters of this cold war,
A strip of land less than a mile keeps apart.
Forced to live in these trenches,
We hold the grenades close to our hearts.

As the General's voice fades under the screams,
The stench of death surrounds me.
Now this battle has become a mass funeral,
Except we none of us will receive a burial.