In the silence echoing within our
blood-stained tomb,
cracks of rifles
roll like snippets of thunder,

each shot
a bullet of doom
shattering my hardened heart.

The stifling heat carries the stench
of muddy sewage and perspiration,
of musty sweet death--
like withering flowers--
and just a tang of metallic scarlet;

it is the iron from
fresh rivulets of red
blossoming on the 
rain drenched earth.

I try to remember
my father's face,
but it melts away
into that of a stranger
whose heartbeat I had
halted.

My mother's lilting lullaby
is masked by
the dead man's screams
and I listen to his last breath
knowing I will never deserve
another good night's sleep.

They preached loyalty,
boasted grandeur,
promised glory

and paid us with nothing
but endless
grime and gore.

The sky above me
is a starless abyss;
my roses have shriveled,
trickling in rivers on my palms.

I wonder,
What are we doing here?

A/N:
Wow I'm alive :)
So we're learning about wartime poetry at school and this was for homework;
it's not the best partly because I forgot O had to do this till an hour before I slept last night (yay for procrastination)

Anyway, this is about life in the trenches.
I am aware of the missed opportunity of rhyming stench with trench but it honestly doesn't fit/ sound nice.