The Shallow Fields

In shallow waters the nightmares begin,
Punching holes through my skeletal skin,
Tarnishing my rights, flooding my dreams,
Dying so coldly for a harsh regime,

My fire of self will has long since burnt out,
Fellow comrades sleepwalking as they scout,
We march on drunk by the harshness of a place,
Never here shall we fall in disgrace,

Summer turns from black to a sudden white,
Oil burns high above us into the unending night,
Falling from the sky as if it the earth’s own blood,
We all fall down into this certain flood,

Covered head to toe by the black blood of god,
Choking from the harsh smell of a rich man’s nod,
Sticky and pungent binding our souls together,
This oil made of the devil’s weather,

March on and guard the oil of another man’s bounty,
For no greater prize than to serve your own country,
Shallow fields illuminated by the fires in our head,
Some of us now wishing this war were long dead