Daymare demons spiral your head. <br />There is no rest in your soft bed. <br />Images of death reveal. <br />The guilt you hide, but feel. <br />A war of shadows. <br />Where you once fought. <br />In back gardens where children play <br />For only peace you wished and sought. <br />The grass green hills of your childhood remain. <br />But there, there was no death sign <br /> <br />Wife and kids you greet at garden gate. <br />They don’t see your inner hate. <br />They don’t see your embroiled conscience, <br />or know the infliction you bare. <br />They’re only too happy to have you home. <br />Home to love and share. <br />You are a soldier home. <br />A soldier home from a war, <br />Trying your guilt to hide. <br />Trying to forget the child you shot, that died. <br /> <br />The war was someone else’s. <br />Why should you really care? <br />It only really strikes home, <br />when you see a child dying there. <br />Visions cloud your mind of voices in despair. <br />Why did we have to die so young? <br />Why did our mother’s have to mourn? <br />Soldier from another land, please tell us why? <br />The soldier’s forehead frowns. <br />The answer he can not give. <br />He was only sent there. <br />So other have a chance to live. <br /> <br />Now his war is over. <br />Over his home he now resides. <br />But the voices of despair. <br />Still ring in his head. <br />He cries to himself in silence. <br />How can his conscience bare. <br />The purgatory it must go through. <br />Knowing he killed a child fair. <br /> <br />18 July 1978<br /><br />David Harris<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-soldier-home-from-a-war/
