Traci Ashbe Dark Epic Fantasy Author

Trampled where they fell, the dead and dying,
Mud and blood tainting each final breath,
Their cries unheard, unheeded by the guns,
Made one with sacred earth blasphemed by death.

Shells crack and cackle, ‘necessary evil’,
A whispered ‘Mother!’ lost amid the noise
Of killing to survive another day;
A band of warriors no more than boys.

All honour crushed beneath a kinsman’s boot,
And tales of glory seen to be a lie
By children sent to fight in Flanders’ fields
As cannon-fodder, doomed to kill or die.