Prayers For Those Who Will Not Listen Poem by Isabelle Parkes

Do they hand out my secrets on street corners now?
What gave it away, a twisted man’s hands?
The look on my face when I refused to bow
To a ridiculous power on stage. There he stands;

“I promise a sweet victory and so do the others,
I give you the guns but you know where to go, ”
And later he’ll send men to apologize to the mothers;
If anything happens they should probably know

That I wasn’t at the Front and falling behind,
Unlike the young men looking limp on the ground,
Their souls too far gone to feel the loss of their mind
As they realise they’ll be lucky if their bodies are found.

Victory was promised, it would be such a grand show
To see the enemy killed, that is what we were told,
Threats so full should surely overflow;
The fire in their eyes is, like the rest of them, cold.