Bitter Laugh

Death the great deceiver
Whispers to the soldier
That the love he bears his comrade
Is the greatest he will know
It sets a mist around him
A force field of emotion
A cloud of blood and hormones
That makes monstrous the foe

And when his friend is wounded
When his life pours out in battle
And his spirit leaves his body
Like smoke rising from a flame
The soldier’s gripped by madness
The berserker rage of Ares
And he swoops down like a fury
To savage all within his aim

Then falls the grieving mother
Then falls the aged father
Then fall the little children
Who cannot escape the blast
And when the fever’s broken
And the soldier stares in horror
He can hear the ghostly echo
Of the Deceiver’s bitter laugh

Now far-off stand the leaders
The commanders in their glory
With the profiteers who ply them
With the gold they wring from blood
But alone you’ll find the soldier
In a labyrinth of sorrow
In a never-ending darkness
That has drowned him in its flood

© Chris Floyd