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Jacqueline Oram Sweet Disaster
Heading out to the front line,
I’m just whistling that sweet tune of mine.
Just thinking this will soon be over,
And I’ll be back in France before too long.
They cheer and holler as we march through the streets,
The Battle at Marne we go.
Suddenly a clang is heard,
I panic in distress,
Looking for the one thing that can save me now:
That horrid, rank mask.
A looming green cloud rolls in on the favored breath of the enemy
Incomparably terrified I look beside myself
My comrade, keeling over, eyes rolling ceaselessly looking for an end to the pain
With a last spasmodic jolt, the life is sucked out of him
Chills fly up and down my spine,
But I push on.
Nearing the cold, unforgiving barbed wires of the other side
The humming harmony of shells spraying like the ocean foam on the windy day,
Relentlessly pelting,
Relentlessly desecrating,
The sweet disaster.
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