eisenscheibe
Ypres 1914
its after the fight survival starts
hammered tin mess kit tips a cigarette into
trembling lip
friends, enemies all dead
and he ignores his reflection in a puddle
avoids the gaze of one haunted eye
no hiding on the pitch
meadow mortar kicked the loam high
resettled the land into irregular columns
caked country's green with blood and machine oil
new real estate for the morticians to divide
glimpsed though ruinous poison gas
eisenscheibe
he thinks a hallucination
iron disc that skirts his vision
hopscotch across his retina
it borrows doubt, flickers uncommon
dogs him as he navigates the ditch
of what he was told was the enemy this one was not known
faceless witness hanging lead
a quiot in the mined-out sky
impartial but for a kind of hate he had never felt, but always wore
a pennant hung in every corner they resent
together for this one time, a judgement of the witness
but the blood on his shirt mutes protest
any agreement of justice
and there's something of him in this
blind intolerance after reason has fled
whatever's left in a gun, a man
after the last shot has been fired
where is his place in this new peace?
with that patriot evaporates
begins to turn in fear of new rain
washing into boots, blisters on blisters
and the air hums as it comes on
light in waves that pulverize
teeth, kidneys
glows in Fe resonant absorption lines only measurable above ≈7 keV
running now, it's beam of heat plays at his feet
makes funeral celebrant face curl and ash
sterilizes the Earth for decades to come
a messenger of scale met a soldier, a corpse
left him a myth in brown leather
turned away from the scene with one haunted eye
#undergroundmusic #pittsburghmusic #ww1