The stuffed men
I
We are the men stuffed with what
society needs us to be
and when the government draws the strings
we jump; we obey against our own will,
we are the stuffed men who were taught
lethal skills to be turned on and off
like mere machines
to be unleashed against a enemy
consisting out of other men
and our lives, our own humanity
to the government is totally meaningless.
II
We were shaped and formed
and forced into military training camps
into a stark cohesion
where the individual soul perishes
and the group reigns supreme
where those who goes into eternity,
goes into death, knows us
as if we are some of them
where violence, killing is measured out
by great and sincere men
who like rag dolls are stuffed,
like marionettes have to obey
the commands given to them.
III
In dreams there are eyes that we avoid,
situations that reoccur,
the stark reality of living
after others have perished
and reliving through the slaughter of war
as if we were made for greater things
and have eternal difficulty to comprehend
sending men to their end
and voices, screams, events, people and places
stays with us
and the pain, the desolation
return in dreams
as if they are trying to draw us to the kingdom
where death reigns supreme.
IV
The battlefields remain,
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poem by Gert Strydom
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