Soldier To Soldier Poem by Zubyre Parvez

It had been hours of gruelling violence,
he could feel a aching tiredness in his legs,
and his back was giving him gip,
as he hobbled over dead bodies of men
who were conscripted as early as eighteen.
The things he saw in these moments were
enough in the coming years away from
the sanguinary battlefield.
He saw the enemy face metamorphose
in the slowing down of time into a face
that was familiar and distant to him,
like some member of his tribe.
It was the face of his brother,
a fellow Turk in a past life
he had spontaneously recalled
in the heat of the moment.
It brought him a strange wave of happiness,
An oasis of joy and comfort in a barren desert.
He dropped his rifle to the ground,
the memory struck piercing into his mind
as his brothers wild staring eyes.
Disorientated now, he grew angry and quizzical
at the absurdity of the war.
Losing his sense of place and time,
something so necessary for any mercenary,
he retreated from the sanguinary battleground,
becoming his own worst enemy.
A war inside him raged now, the camouflage fatigues,
reminding him of some deeper connection with nature.