In a rain-filled blood billed hole

Lies a body but no soul.

What was once a laughing life

Now cold as meat beneath the knife.

Unrecognisable as human form

This thing that once was loving...warm,

Face down...obscured from prying eye

Of pals still living passing by.

Survivors - comrades of the dead

Unmindful of what lies ahead,

Stagger on to other pits

And other content blown to bits.

But there above that death spilled rim

A solitary sign remains of him.

In a final last salute

There stands a lonely mud-slimed boot.

And as his fellows pass that hole

Each reaches out to touch its sole

And rest there in a mute farewell

As they move on to face their personal hell.

.................................................................................