FridayII June

Home

They're coming home
They're coming home
The boys are coming home

There's a hole in your head?
And the other eye's dead?
And where's your hand?
Left it with Buddha in Bamiyan.

Lying in dirty bloody sand.
War-torn carrion.
Congealing in Kandahar's sun
The bloody end of being 21.

Blown from below, twisted limb from limb.
Burnt bone, freshly fried flesh.
Nerves done in.
Shock takes on the look of death.
As the last breath rattles in.

Too late - a date with fate.
Medical assistance hastily flew in.
Too late.
Too young.
Too brave.
Balls are smashed.
The nerves have crashed.

A surgeon's bride
Shorn of pride.
Home now.
Rotting in a council's no-man land.
Watching dust dance on shitty curtains.

They're popping up everywhere.
The 21st century's casualties of war.
Struggling with city curbs in desert combat.
Wearing the same cool shades they used to pull in.

The dawning of a new age.
History's way of turning a page.
No more holding hands or feeling like a man.
Left with the dead on tarmac in Afghanistan.