Over The Top Poem by Colin Ian Jeffery

Birds no longer sing
Where young men cowered in trenches
Rifle with bayonet fixed
Wondering if they would live or die
Wanting comfort of a mother's kiss.

Officers blew whistles
Brigade clamber from trenches
Walking over shell craters through barbwire
On towards waiting machine guns
Surmounting terrors that make men insane.

There is no sound
But thumping beat of each soldier's heart
As he steps forward into hell
Trying to control terror and panic
Thinking of loved ones back home.

Machine gunners open up
Chatter of bullets raking the ranks
Deafening noise, screams as men fall
Wounded struggling in the mud
And for dead grieving mothers to mourn.