I thought I caught a glimpse of me coming back
the other way, a phantom of me somewhere from the future
in a tunnel white with dust, heavy in a veil of blood.


Going this way there is no past. I focus on the boots in front
heels kicking up the sand stone and goat shit,
almost laughing I choke, the voices in the distance sound killable.


Up ahead the sky is flashing white through yellow
the crump comes seconds later, 
somewhere a barrel is smoking and a life is gone.


Never more alive than close to death,
let me touch it let me feel the void,
I’m ready to take the sweeping scythe.


How many times did we leap its dripping blade?
or turn a corner one block early to live another day,
then hear the stories of the dead who turned the other way.


And did we care? we did not, we revelled in our life,
we shrugged off death.
I saw in your eyes our luck running out,


as I saw them power down when yours ran out,
in the moment I saw you fade, 
I shouted “fuck” then you were dead.


The last sound you heard was me shout “fuck”
I wish I’d shouted something else,
but I shouted that, and you were dead.


I saw myself reflected in a fuselage on the way home,
strapped to a board like an outcast angel 
I shouted “FUCK” at the medic, he shouted “Fuck off” back, we laughed.


At the reception centre I saw my wife’s face in the crowd,
it didn’t feel like home yet,
I felt myself break, right there, right then.


I hope Valhalla is hell for you,
for the quiet of this peace is killing me.

© Wolfgar 2018

Traveling across open flatland toward Štimlje the ground begins to rise.
Driving on through the tight enclosed lanes of the town to the far side as if to leave,
a battered overgrown compound looms into view, its heavy mesh fences collapsing and dilapidated in parts.

This is Štimlje Mental Asylum. The patients are unable or unwilling to leave, they have been abandoned left to fend for themselves or die.
The staff have fled because this is a war zone.

Snow lays in muddy patches around about, stained with shit and blood.
A slug-like legless form drags itself through excrement seemingly going nowhere fast,
its insane leer and wolf-like howling splits the cold air, this thing is human.

Horror descends.

We continue systematically on foot, through unlit grey buildings and rooms, behind each door a shocking portal to another circle of hell.
Women, children, half animals, intermittent screeching barking and yelps.
Self harming, open wounds, and the gut wrenching stench of filth.

In one room no bigger than a single garage space, at least fifty naked forms stand silently shivering.
They stare out of hollow skulls straight through me as I stand silhouetted in the doorway.
They seem to be mostly men its hard to tell, their emaciated bodies look sexless.
Upon closer inspection there are a few women present, Jesus! What might have happened to them in here? Their hair is matted in clumps.

There were just four of us a small recce team we could do nothing we had nothing, we were staring into hell and were struck dumb by it.
We drove in Silence back to Pristina not one single fucking word.

I was strong, fit, able in mind and body. I was in my late thirties and this wasn’t my first war.

I got back to a quiet place and hid myself, I cried and shook like a pathetic child, big tough fucking soldier eh?

And sometimes that is how war fucks you, slowly. Either that or you get blown to shit.

Who would write poetry about that?

© Wolfgar 2018

Please visit the link below to view War and Remembrance collection
https://wolfgarwords.com/category/war-and-remembrance/