Silence

Wanton

Anxious, beating hearts,

Silent intakes of breath,

Scared eyes, stare ahead,

Ears, awaiting the call.

Cold, emotionless steel,

Pressed to warm hands,

Weighed down by garments.

Sweat, tickles as it flows.

Fear parades no man's land,

Giving rise to muttered prayers.

Flashes of loved ones,

Move men's eyes to tears.

Prancing horse signals,

A ripple through ranks spreads,

Final moments of anticipation,

Dissipates upon a breeze.

Heightened senses, overload,

Sweats stench overpowers,

Nervous twitches, apprehensive faces.

Earth shattering silence,

As sword arcs up,

Ready to cleave the air...

Roar! As the air is felled.

Shaking bodies, goaded to action,

Swells forward, like a tide,

Rushing, screaming insanity,

Crossing the gap, to embrace.

Two hordes of men,

Thoughtless, blind obtuse followers,

Entangle upon one another,

In hellish, screams of pain and dying!

Arms, legs, bodies, heads are cleaved.

Dying are punctured by cowards pierce,

Pressed forward into the mass of Death!

Fear rank amongst the amassed,

Culled by each stroke,

Men dying in rivers of crimson blood,

As absurdity subsides.

Crying of the perishing over power,

The gloating, boasting, cheering,

Of the shameless victors standing,

With raised weapons, drenched in life.

Wanton lust of killing fulfilled,

Upon carnage spread far and wide,

Yet near enough to taste.

Blood covered victors,

Mingle with the dead,

Slowly searching for the living,

Amongst the many carrion.

Caws of swarming crows and ravens,

Rings forth, true victors in reality,

To descend upon the prepared feast.

Striped of flesh and now of wealth,

Nothing sacred for the dead.

Cast upon pyres of greedy fire,

Consumed eagerly till nothing left.

Of rich life, non can comprehend,

The wasted life, upon this field,

A richness ill spent,

For greed or hate?

The rewards if nothing more,

Than another battle,

On another day of wanton insanity...