Medals Poem by Kevin Patrick

Maimed limbs are the marks of true Victory
Stalwart honours of blood toned testaments
Bestowed to men, trained to crawl in misery
Of mankind's talent for carnages excrement.
You can earn this reward if you live or die
In the line of stretchers where agonies engorged
Searing sinews ripping craters deep in your thigh
Spilling half a skull, leaving brain matter reabsorbed
Perhaps you'll have wounds that aren't so clean
With the paralysed eyes with a thousand mile glares
Stillborn hopes of men living with euthanized dreams
Holding onto nothing more than the thin air of prayer.
So after all their sacrifices for their great nation
Navigating the shell storms and littered dead friends
What better reward for the trauma and amputation
Then a Medal that celebrates your childhoods end