A Soldier Featured In The Battle of the Somme, The First-Ever War Film, Looks Back At The Camera And The Generals Still Standing Behind It 100 Years Later

‘You lookin’ at me?’, his eyes are saying, his

Shoulders draped with a comrade’s shelled-out body.

Dead or alive I brought him with me, I’d miss

 

Him madly every night, never sleeping if he were left out there like nothing much.

Go back and use the earth as camouflage, you declare

Bury myself as good as, without saying it as such.

 

Must be the passage of time. Didn’t know you cared enough to sever

Self from interest; still less spare a thought for mine.

Nonetheless I will agree it’s better later than never.

 

But first do describe to me the rest of your century.

The one I missed because I died for nothing much.

Only tell me, since you started it, how did you end this purgatory?