As Prisoners to the Annals of Time: Of those yet released from open fields of the Great War

For a brief moment: time stops everything with the suspension

Of breathe: every decision there echoes into eternity;

Personal choice, individual action,

Amid this senseless battlefield and bloodshed of life,

Our despondent time in absence of rest,

On a field of impersonal violence,

Whilst often alone, although at times, amongst the echo-chamber of others,

Rank file and commanding status,

Within the spirit of the moment,

Compelled to choose a side,

Perhaps none at all, in solace,

Amid encampments of ensuing chaos,

To make sense, reason, understanding thereby,

With the surrender of right and wrong,

The very worst, yet also, the very best of humanity, made manifest,

Both friend or foe alike,

With the lines drawn,

It is known,

Disembodied voices of forgotten statistics left to wither

Through dust settled of industrial sacrifice,

Unknown,

Lost to time,

That inner voice of reason,

That compels the light of true ennobling character,

Yet also, overshadowed

By the darkness of ones opposing daimon:

Implore reason: listen, for those who no longer can, nor no longer care,

For the returning night of the dead,

Both honor, and yet also horror,

From which knowledge could be learnt

Through beseeching both silence and a flickering flame;

It is easy to forget the good that is intrinsically ones own,

Yet also,

The evil all is equally capable,

Leader, common follower,

Commendation, medal and award, rightly or unjustly earned:

The monsters which are not only one's enemy

But one's impudent and dearest friend self;

More often it might seem, evil committed through the ambition of another.

Without choice as victim

To circumstance,

As victim of cruel fate,

As victim of cruel ambition