WAR Poem: The Last Plea, by Prajna Mundra

It rose from hell,
Like devil’s sick of sin,
Through death of poppies
To where we’d been
.
Softly, slowly, the wicked smiled,
In that moment, we realized—
BOOM! And then silence,
Was it the good old riddance?

Steel ripped the air, and blood ran red,
I lay torn, barely alive, not dead,
A shrapnel bite, a burning brand,
Yet worse—the sight that lay at hand.

He lay there broken, torn in two,
His eyes met mine, hollow and blue,
The wind howled, the trees danced
Yet, it was not a blissful trance

“Shoot Me,” he begged, his voice a cry,
But my hands shook, I could not comply.
Before I moved, his breath was gone,
His spirit lost, his body drawn.

And there, amidst the mud and cries,
He closed his empty, pleading eyes.
I saw in him the fate of all,
The silent answer to war’s call.