No Man's Land Poem by B. V. Dahlen

Swirls of fanged meta
churn the flushing mud
where trod a foot,
fossilized and final.

A faded shred furls on the fetid breeze
the fabric ragged and stained.
A haze hugs the ground.
Poisoned?
It slithers snakelike towards the pit.

Failing moans escape the crude depression
hacked in terror of a stream
of piercing shedding bullets...
Digging their own graves.

Suspended from a broken bough,
a chipped and battered helmet
hangs from a bloodied strap.
And in the distance, muffled
bursts of sharp and roaring sounds
interrupt the eery silence
of the lost and soon-forgotten
battlefield.