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This writing was accepted for publication in the 108 page perfect-bound ISSN# / ISBN# issue/book... “Waterlogged” Down in the Dirt, v144 (the April 2017 Issue) You can also order this 6"x9" issue as a paperback book:

Order this writing in the book Study in Black the Down in the Dirt July-Dec. 2016 collection book		get the 418 page Jan.-April 2017 Down in the Dirt issue anthology 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback book:

Passchendaele
(First World War -
“The war to end all wars”)

Steven Pelcman

For years afterward
trees remained skinless
appearing as dim flashes
of lightning, wobbly and fading
in the water’s reflection.

The brown water
of helmets still bob
and the memories
of hunched soldiers;
countless wax figures

in a muddy death,
alongside paths
made of wooden duckboards,
and crushed trees;
solemn bystanders

where the young
are forever young,
now and then rise
to the surface
with the slip of bone

and the gurgling mud
still sloshing through
a hollow skull
where frogs continue
to find refuge.

The marshland grabbed hold of them,
tugged at them from beneath
and pulled them away
from the ant colony of trenches,
from the mustard gas,

the constant bombardments,
the blown-up shell holes,
and out of the heavy rains
only to sink deeply
into the curdling darkness.

They are still there;
shattered voices echoing,
staring at the barbed wire
slithering between the dark
earthy mounds and searching

for the wooden ladders
across the mud and crawling
in the fog and hiding among the
furrows of new born
ploughed earth.

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