Poetry

The War We Won

By KRISTEN AKLAND | Published: May 5, 2013

Who remembers those days long forgotten?
when our men flew away from home
they went proudly, to protect the good; they said.
Perhaps they didn’t know the pain, perhaps they didn’t care.

We didn’t see our dead those days,
Who rarely bothered coming home to die.
We spoke of them in codes
With elaborated tones; as if to bring them back.
Seldom the ghosts came back bearing their tales
Of falling to the ground, or drowning in the infinite abysmal sea
Rather they stayed in some moaning wind,
ever fading in the mind,

Who had no graves but only epitaphs
Where never so many spoke for never so few:
“Goodbye, brave soldiers,” mumbled those left standing.
With a prayer nearly forgotten, only their widows left in the dust.

That was the good war, the war we won
It seemed as if all bloodshed slipped their minds.
Australia, New Zealand and all the allies stand strong still
With the help of the losers we left out there
In the emptiness of the air.