Poetry Break – “Let Me Tell You How I Died” – Over the Top!

The “Let Me Tell You How I Died” series is back! Continuing this week with Part II, which has seven segments about World War I. Segment two of Part II covers the horrors of charging out of the trenches against well-fortified positions, machine guns, and barbed wire. It was a tragic scenario that played out countless times across the Ypres Salient, and I saw the results with my own eyes – the thousands of white grave stones all across Belgium.

LET ME TELL YOU HOW I DIED

PART II – SEGMENT 2

Over the Top!

Over the top and give ‘em hell!

That’s the command we know so well

The watch hands tick, it’s almost time

The shells start flying and churn up the grime

I stomp my feet, my breath comes in a cloud

Will I come out on a stretcher?  On my feet? In a shroud?

Behind us, our officer paces and grunts

A whistle to his lips, a shrill blast, then the guns

We spill over the trench in a screaming mass

I get snagged on the barbed wire while the others pass

Bullets go crack, I hear them whizz by

Aiming straight for me- will I now get mine?

Somehow I knew the answer was yes

I just knew that morning, like an unlucky guess

Shot right in the heart in Flanders field

Down I fall, not a soul will yield

I lay there in the mud, my breath fades away

I can’t see, I get sad, I wish I could stay

The last I see of this cruel Earth

Is gray dawn over Flanders, a new day’s birth

To Be Continued…

To Read Segment 1 of Part II, “Shelling” – click here