Shell Shock Poem by Colin Ian Jeffery

Shell shock

Shell shock is reaction to overwhelming terror producing helplessness, flight, or inability to reason, sleep, walk or talk. By the end of World War One the British Army dealt with 80,000 cases of shell shock, Including poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen.

Soldier cowering in the mud
Overwhelmed and terrified
Weeping with body trembling
Hearing a scream within the mind
That none but he can hear.

No longer able to fight
Desperate to flee the slaughter
He cannot stop weeping
Tries to stand but remains in the mud
Mind refusing to obey.

The mind protecting the body
Preventing the soldier
Fighting and killing
Trapping him in terror
Struggling for sanity in an asylum.