Back To Reality
A young handsome man in his prime, Striding Cautiously on dry cracked and uncertain ground,
The intense heat beams down on his pale fair face,
The once cold metal now burning his hands, the barrel long and heavy,
Its 1940 and the cruel realisation of war has hit everyone with a cold hard hand of injustice,
In the cool crisp air of night pictures and memories haunt him,
Memories of fellow war heroes, friends that had taken their last dying breaths in his arms,
A piece of his heart going with them every time he said goodbye.
Home seems a distant thought as the other men sit around the warm fire,
The orange glows casts shadows across their troubled expressions, lost in their waking dreams,
Every hour that passes brings them one step closer to tomorrow,
That day would bring new tests, new triumphs,
Under a blistering heat and blinding sun,
The city of Cairo Egypt,
Bustling streets yet empty battlefields,
The sharp sound of re-loading echoes through the heavy air.
He was a man with a wife a son and a family he missed dearly,
He crouched low in the intensely hot sand in the brash and neglectful desert,
He pushed thought of the enemy’s families to the back of his mind,
And returned to the images of his own faithfully,
It had started.
The commands of the officer almost inaudible over the roar of gun shots,
as the sounds faded into darkness….
Age had been kind to the soft features of his face, still fair still handsome,
His face was creased with years gone by, each line a story each scar a tale,
His smiling green eyes hid the pain and torment he had suffered in the war torn countries for which he had served his own,
Photographs of a young man in uniform,
Ghosts and glimpses of his past
I begin to worry that I am forgetting him, his kind eyes and re-assuring smile,
I relax, close my eyes and search for his face in the clockwork of my mind,
Sounds disintegrate into darkness, then I see him, my grandfather,
A young strong handsome man as he was, in his uniform,
Same comforting smile same deep green eyes same pale face,
I feel safe, safe that he is with me, safe in the knowledge that he will always be with me,
I smile to myself as the picture starts to crumble and the memories start to fade,
I open my eyes Back to Britain back to Brackley back to Reality.
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