Preposterous

“Preposterous!” old grandpa said,
He clapped his hands, he shook his head,
And proclaimed with all his feeble might,
That you are wrong and he is right.

He stepped into his musty room,
flipped the light to dismiss the gloom,
pulled his dusty shoebox out,
to show you what he was on about.

Out came his book of scraps and strings,
of greying, stale, forgotten things,
pictures of the life he had led,
the times he’d had and the years he’d shed.

He coughed to clear his throat, began,
when you were but a boy, and I, a man,
I served my country, proud and strong,
I marched in blood, I fought in song.

One sunny morn in grass and hay,
as we in fresh-dug trenches lay,
and waited for a forward move,
for a man to his mettle prove,

an angel, of the storied kind,
crawled up to us through mud and grime
dressed in the uniform of gods,
serving soldiers, serving fjords.

she crawled to each and with water fed,
the parched, and generously bled,
the leader and his marching youth,
brave and coward, resolute

when out from some devil came,
a leaded bullet with her name.
Her weary avengers bravely fought,
no hesitation, no single thought

but bullets are but lifeless things,
they penetrate with deadly sting,
before they take from everyone,
what divides a killer and his gun.

Slowly back my angel fell,
from this mad and open hell,
to greener pastures in between,
to heavenly places in her dreams.

And so it was that ended war,
you know who I was fighting for,
every time I fired my gun,
I took more life until we won.