White Flag

Day one:

We went out
Into that boiling hell-hole
Of wind burned
sunswept
mirages,

Laughing -
Boasting -
Confident -
Like all young men
When they do
What they haven't
done before.
We'd win.
We knew.
For young men cannot die
(Or such young men believe)

Night one:

Snake bite
In a hellish night
Suffered Randalls.
Snake died
- big snake
- black
- small spot
on the back
of its shattered head -
Still young
Still sure
Still laughed,
But Randalls limped a little
When he talked
And we shivered
As we grinned.

Day two:

We limped
As we laughed
On our blistered feet
In the grinding
scratching
seething
sun
Though we killed the bite
Randalls' leg infected.

Dusty scorpions
Bathing dragons
Crunching underfoot
Soft hair on our faces
Stiffening in the
blazing wind
Strong in the challenge
We laughed.

Night two:

Slept well
In a hollow
in the crazy sand
Laughing in our dreams
As on occasion we won
Randalls slept
Though the sand
Ground deep
In the widening
festering wound
Sometimes whimpered
While the shifting
Cold sand
Covered us.

Day three:
We woke
With the sand
and the sun
in our eyes -

Red, grinding eyes
Grinned at each other
Croaked at each other
Buried Randalls
- aged quickly
For young men cannot die
(or so young men believe)

Set out again
In the granite forest
At the base
of the black plateau
Hot sun raked us
Like the cats
of the hungry plateau

We drank our water
Great
Gluttonous
Gulps
Suddenly it was gone
Grinning slightly
Looked up
At the black heathen outline
Watching as the
pale,
pitiless sun
picked at out
glittering eyes.

Night three:

Black clouds
Choked in a
Sea of boulders
Granite needles
Pierced through the night

Shallow
dried-up
pitfalls
And how we prayed
for the light
Windstrung fingers
In the frozen darkness
Strumming us
in our sleep
Cold as the
Kiss of
Death...

Epilogue:

Sandstone cliffs
Stand out
Against a pale
burning sky
Painful flashes
- slashes -
Of a long-dead storm

Flag barely
Flutters
White flag
Nearly covered in sand
Like attempted truce
To the cruel sun
the sand
black cliffs
red wind

And pale, burning sky.

Although I wrote this poem many years ago, it is still dedicated to all the young men who have given their lives on foreign soil for freedom and who continue to do so today.

© David H. (Dave) Cottrell