Gert Strydom
Forced to meet an enemy in a rifle’s sight (in answer to Keith Douglas)
Forced to meet an enemy in a rifle’s sight
a unknown man appears, scratches his head,
he lights a cigarette, draws on it until it glows,
looks at a photo in a way that only his wife knows
his attention moves somewhere up ahead,
to some ibises in their screeching flight
the crosshairs move to his heart bit by bit
while mechanically I test the wind,
thoughts of his family life now means nothing
while on the trigger my finger is pressing,
and no escape can a mortal man find
against full metal jacket bullets that accurately hit.
l’Envoi
Far too familiar is death’s smell,
when every soldier is more machine, than man,
far too familiar are the sounds of bullets whining,
the sight of bodies lying lifeless,
as putrid rotting human flesh, heartless,
the horrors of war are undermining
the essence of being human,
as soldiers live afterwards in a daily kind of hell.
[Reference: “Now in my dial of death appears” by Keith Douglas.]
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