dulce et decorum est

Eleventh month
Eleventh day
Eleventh hour .... the bugle call
And remembering its cue rain begins to fall
And I must pay my due and here recall
The irrevocable pity of war
The untold loss of innocence
Children's lives and bodies rent
And my anger rises
At the usual contrivances
Praising god and monarch and state
The powers that oppress and create
The conflicts to which I give no defence
Wars that demand our common consent
Which I cannot and shall not give
Wishing only those fallen to rise and live
Impossible hopes and fatal dreams
So with the closing I move on too
And stitch together the day's tattered seams
Paying only half the shilling due

benedictus