tunnel vision

oboes sound out
like battle cries bellows
from wounded men
who long for wives
never again to be touched
the smiles of blond
children looking up in awe
wishing that the things
they do not know of
never spread out their crimson
picnic blankets
to feast on humble pies
and pigs eyes
and the horns of
something no one
had ever seen before
battles smeared in grey
bathed in the wine
of prophets they never will be
as the fallen men cry
like terse sticatto
fading the oboes to bathe
in pools of picnic blankets
underneath the sun
that no one sees
above the battlefields