Axis & Allies - damowords

Soviet Dawn
Two trains pass, two souls slumbʹring in the car,
Entering, exiting the theatre,
The last, the royal person of the Tsar,
The first, emergant comrade from Georgia;
Stalin breaks free,
Siberia behind,
He flutters on the freedom of the releas’d mind.
As the Commissars took their place
All the Soviets now one,
The Bolsheviks bore Hemlock face,
Control the railway station,
Banks, Post Office, Winter Palace,
The city all but won ‐
Their faustian Lenin seizes power,
Resplendent in his magnificent hour.
Comrades offering obeyance
Kept him on a promise,
This fresher stance, forget poor France,
What new found wisdom this
A warring empire, humbl’d, probing for an armistice.
Petrograd
Oktober
1917
Passcheandale
Sallow soldiers splash thro boot‐sucking mud
Clinging like poor relations, twice as fast
It breeds, each shell‐hole nauseate with blood,
Swollen black lads bolt upright in repast
& yet more rains ‐
An English Pioneer,
Walks on the wooden veins, two German scouts appear...
He shot one dead, aim switchʹd sharp right,
Max dodgʹd the angry bullet,
Slipping into thick slime & shite,
Duckboard tilts Charlie in it,
Both surge to meet in surly fight,
Grapple & groan with grit...
Til KARMA descends, bright crystal goddess,
Parting the duel, men break in weariness,
To finish this some other day;
Meanwhile the leaf Maple
Has hackʹd its way thro bullet spray
& shrapnel pluvial,
To seize the village yet to name this brutal, famed battle.
Flanders
November
1917