One. The Soldier: 6 June 2012.
Fallen into a war he cannot win

In conflict with sobriety

So long in the field his socks are filthy

Skin dry, caked in dirt and mapped in blood

He has not showered, cannot recall when he last washed

There’s much he can’t say of his battles

He must be coaxed into remembering all he wants to forget

It is the constant reverberation of explosions

Criticism bursting in his conscience

Truth exploding in showers of rage, until

Shell-shocked he admits to terror

Unable to confront the enemy face to face

At the bar damaging himself hand to hand

At war in no mans land is where he stands

Suffering combat fatigue, nodding off

In the trench of work, on the tram,

At the dinner table, exhaustion is a given

Sleep is delirium interrupted by bombardment

Constant as not thinking just slipping

Alive into nightmare battles where he wins

Only to be crushed along with his battered enemy

The soldiers’ lot does not end just because it is night

Apnoea the phantom strangler stalks the mind

Every endless eight-hour repose to wake to another day

He knows will be worse than the day now gone.



Two. The Chaplain: 6 June 2012.
He is a high priest of tales

Teller of tall stories

Indignant of non-believers

Intolerant of sceptics among his flock
Tears flood in the telling,

Drowning exhausted pilgrims

In the Nile River of contrition

Fake myth that it is, it works
On the alter of alcohol

He sacrifices sobriety

In rituals of mumbled jumbo

He requires fear not belief
He knows he too fights a war trapped

Within a doctrine of deceit and cunning

He is more sinner than sinned, for all he prays

His prayers will not fill the empty pews.



Three. The Spy: 6 June 2012.
The double agent cannot forget

His duplicity but at least

He never offers up information

It has to be dragged out

His supporters he believes

Are enemies in disguise

He lives behind his iron curtain

Letting his puppet life a free hand

After all it is only play

In a game of make believe

You make yourself believe, to be

Whoever you need to be today

To cover your real mission

To find a message in a bottle

Kidding your self

It is a skill that comes naturally

And if there are no witnesses

Who is there to deny your present identity?

Who you will betray depends

On who comes close to unveiling your deceit!

You are the spy and you must betray

Those closest who will unmask your shot eyes

Any who expose your fatty liver, swollen belly

Exposed an agent of your own demise

By the compulsion to lie under your

Disguise you pretend is the truth.



Four. M.I.A: 6 June 2012.
It is the ones who cannot get over

You not coming home

Night after night the fretting

Bloody imagination playing merry hell

Scenarios of every possible way he went

The women and children statistics

The men listed as missing in action at the pub
The real truth of his war is old news

It is hard to help, offer ground support

Widows and orphans, brothers and sisters, friends

Who know in their bones one bad moment

Is all it will take to hear the news

You have been expecting ever since his war began

He is not coming home from the front bar
Damaged beyond sense and cursed to live

Brain shot to pieces toasting at the tap

Liver and Heart suffocating under layers of fat

He’s home but missing in action

Missing the point wishing he were dead

And he would end his mission if he could

Think one thought through to the end.