The Hands Held On The Wire
By Dominic Kudzia (grade 12)
The Hands Held On the Wire XV.
As drums bang, papers fly, and trumpets blow
We march ourselves to the processing station
Imagining the processions upon our return, they’ll bestow
The flowers, the glory, the eternal blazon.
We didn’t understand what we were getting into, and thus
Of the events that would transpire
Our teachers and fathers never told us
About the hands held on the wire.
We sign our names on dotted lines
Our fates sealed with pen and ink
Understanding nothing of bayonets, poison gas, landmines
Or the death, the rats, the hunger, the stink.
We board the trucks to begin our training
Our spirits high with laughter
We talk like children, excitedly, not knowing
Of the things we’d see thereafter.
We thought it would be all fun and games
Like a quick trip to summer camp
And we’d soon come home to many dames
But our dreams were extinguished like an oil lamp.
Forced to march from here to there
And slog through the mud-filled mire
In some feeble attempt to prepare
Us for, the hands held on the wire.
Our training finished, we ride the train
Along the countryside, which takes hours
Under the constant pelting of midday rain
God’s weeping disguised as Autumn showers.
At the moment we step off the boxcars into town
Before the real fighting has even begun
One of us is savagely cut down
His life taken, in the blink of an eye, by machine gun.
His life and name we’d never know
As we run to “safety”, never looking back
He thought he’d return home a war hero
Now nothing more than another corpse, another dead name on a plaque.
We arrive in the bunker and see the men
Their faces worn, eyes sunken from the shells of war
We should have known right then
That we weren’t boys, or even men anymore.
They’re starving, dying, living in hell
Shellshocked from weeks of artillery fire
Men who have learned all too well
About the hands held on the wire.
We sit, bombarded by ordnance and rain for days
No food, no rest, as madness descends
We long to see the sun's golden rays
Then suddenly, without warning the shelling ends.
We ready our rifles, mortars, and explosives, on command
And take our positions along the trench
I look over the top, across No Man’s Land
And see swarms and swarms of charging French.
The shooting starts, and in an instant, hundreds die
Nothing we heard about battle was true
As the glory dissipates, and mothers cry
I see a Frenchman starting to break through.
He grabs onto the barbs, through the debris
As a grenade flies through the crossfire
It explodes, I lock shut my eyes, but peek to see
Two hands left held on the wire.
The battle ends and we’re sent on leave
We return home to our families
We thought it would be eternal reprieve
But we were destroyed by our past memories.
Tossing and turning throughout the nights
Life feels empty, no meaning
Insomnia, tremors, phantom frights
The headaches and visions never ceasing.
I long to be free from these things, be numb
Yet my mind still burns like fire
Seems death the only thing that can now free me from
The hands held on the wire.