When Heroes Return

 

When Heroes Return

When walking wounded, limping home,

Bring battles they must face alone,

They wrestle wars that never cease,

Denied the calm of inner peace.

 

Battle-scarred soldiers, torn and maimed,

By fate and war’s cruel hand reclaimed,

Now climb new mountains, steep and high,

With shattered hearts that will not die.

 

They fight with demons none can see,

Their minds ensnared in memory,

Shellshock whispers through the years,

Reviving pain, regret, and tears.

 

Disfigured faces, twisted skin,

Hide courage fierce that burns within,

And families, trembling, hold them near,

Relieved their heroes reappeared.

 

But who can truly comprehend,

The torment they must still defend?

With scars that etch their very core,

They fight the fight forevermore.

 

For comrades lost, their spirits ache,

Each breath another debt to take,

Their haunted dreams replay the cries,

Of those who fell before their eyes.

 

Each sudden sound, each fleeting spark,

Can plunge their souls again to dark,

Still living poised on fragile thread,

Between the living and the dead.

 

Each night repeats confusion’s call,

Their shadows dancing on the wall,

They lash at ghosts that never fade,

By their own memories betrayed.

 

No peace awaits their weary mind,

The war within is not confined,

It lingers long, through every year,

A whispered voice they still can hear.

 

And those who’ve never borne the fight,

Who preach of wrong and speak of right,

Know nothing of the price they’ve paid,

Or how their souls were torn and flayed.

 

While generals marked their tidy lines,

And strategized in ordered signs,

The soldiers bled for freedom’s name,

Their lives consumed by duty’s flame.

 

So, when you see the lost, the burned,

In cardboard homes where hope has turned,

Remember—though their war is done,

The heroes’ peace has not begun.

Written By: Alan.Clark@WW1POET (Oct 2025)

The Wicked Spell of Death

 

The Wicked Spell of Death

 The mourning bell, its sorrowed chime,

Resounds through grief, defying time.

In shadowed halls, the silence weeps,

Where memory stirs, and anguish sleeps.

 

Each tear that falls, a soul’s lament,

For love now lost, for life once spent.

Through shrouded air, the dirges swell,

Caught within death’s wicked spell.

 

The candles tremble, the mourners pray,

Their trembling lips know not what to say.

They reach for those they’ll touch no more,

Whose laughter fades to the ocean’s roar.

 

Why must the kind, the innocent die?

Their names ascend on a broken sky.

Time halts its breath — the heartbeats cease,

And war devours the dream of peace.

 

The thunder sounds of hatred’s hymn,

A hollow cheer for the reaper grim.

The land once promised now runs red,

With echoes of the newly dead.

 

Each soul a pendulum, swinging low,

Counting the seconds before they go.

Shell-shocked hearts in ruin stand,

Cradled by fate’s unsteady hand.

 

The open caskets gaze, unblinking,

Upon a world too numb for thinking.

Widows draped in sorrow’s black,

Carry their love, and never look back.

 

Through every screen, the world bears witness,

To war’s obscene, unholy sickness.

A madness born from hearts of stone,

Where mercy dies, and truth’s unknown.

 

The treaties torn, the vows betrayed,

The cost of peace too long delayed.

So much love to the grave has gone,

While tyrants cheer what they’ve undone.

 

We reach for spirits, shades in flight,

Who vanish into the endless night.

Brave souls of Ukraine, steadfast, true,

The world remembers — it owes to you.

 

Time marches on with weary tread,

Through haunted streets of grief and dread.

Each child once laughing, bright, and small,

Now silent ghosts — they haunt us all.

 

Their dreams lie buried in the loam,

While doves of mourning guide them home.

And still, the world turns half-aware,

Averted eyes, a vacant stare.

 

The victims wait in whispered prayer,

Their hope dissolving in the air.

And still, more precious lives decline,

While warlords cross the sacred line.

Written By: Alan.Clark@WW1POET (Oct 2025)

Within

 

Within

A stranger walked inside of him,
his voice was faint; his light was dim.
A shadow born of pain and rue,
the man he was, he never knew.

The curse took root as he grew old,
it wrapped his heart in icy hold.
A ghost within, it learned to hide,
and whispered lies from deep inside.

He lived half here, half out of sight,
his spirit torn between the night.
Another soul, forever hurled,
adrift within a broken world.

And when his breath has come and gone,
the haunting will go drifting on.
For every wound the dark consoles
begets a host of restless souls.

Written By: Alan.Clark@WW1POET (Oct 2025)

In Haunting Thought

 

In Haunting Thought

Each day she bore the weight of being,

Life’s cruel inequity, unseen.

The sun would sink, the shadows climb,

And night devour the edge of time.

 

Where daylight yields to dark’s command,

And colours fade from earth and land,

The waking world in silence lies,

Its toiling breath replaced by sighs.

 

Then soft as feathers, freed from care,

She drifted through the twilight air,

Across the border, faint and thin,

Where dream and darkness both begin.

 

Her bed behind, her body still,

She wandered where the night winds chill,

Through ghostly halls of thought and fear,

Where unseen whispers brushed her ear.

 

The dream-weaver, with wicked grace,

Would twist her mind, her heart displace;

Through restless storms her spirit torn,

By ghoulish shapes the night had born.

 

Perhaps they were the dead’s remains,

Still bound by longing’s phantom chains—

They sought her soul, so frail, so kind,

To claim a home within her mind.

 

Illusions danced, her senses frayed,

Her peace undone, her strength decayed.

She woke in tangled sheets of dread,

The echoes screaming in her head.

 

Her thoughts, once calm, now bruised, confused,

Her reason dimmed, her courage bruised.

In fearful dreams her mind confined,

A captive of its darker kind.

 

And yet when morning’s mercy came,

She found the world looked much the same.

The monsters fled, the night withdrew,

But still their shadowed breath she knew.

 

She pondered all her visions deep,

The secrets sown within her sleep—

Each dream a riddle, warning, plea,

Unanswered through eternity.

 

And when the dusk again draws near,

She braces for that reign of fear—

Prays that her fragile soul might keep

One peaceful hour of dreamless sleep.

Written By: Alan.Clark@WW1POET (Oct 2025)

The Lord of the Spies

 

 The Lord of the Spies

He cast his all-seeing sight, right out across the great divide,

Through barren lands where faith was lost, and hope had died.

Beyond the reach of mortal gaze, beyond the bounds of men,

He looked on realms of ruin vast and turned his gaze again.

 

For there, in law’s corrupted hand, the weary masses lay,

Their hollow souls by greed enslaved, bartered day by day.

He saw the still, unblinking eyes of faces carved by strain,

A host of ghosts who served as thralls, their suffering all in vain.

 

Their bodies bent to tyrant’s rule, their worth cast to the ground,

Their sadness drowned in endless wars, in deaths glory crowned.

His vision, through the vaulted sphere, beheld in spectral skies,

A realm of hollow, sightless orbs—an empire built on empty eyes.

 

Eyes of famine, eyes of fear, eyes of sorrow, and submissions,

Eyes that saw but could not change their hopeless, harsh conditions.

Eyes of children, dimmed by dust, who never learned to dream,

Eyes that watched the fading light as it lost its fragile gleam.

 

He saw the rot of pride and gold, addiction’s shining snare,

Hearts consumed by shallow gain, minds stripped cold and bare.

He saw them dread the trumpet’s call, conscripted to the line,

Dragged from life to feed the beast—their sacrifice divine.

 

From wastelands bleak they came in tears, in misery forlorn,

Harvested by hands of hate, condemned, betrayed, and torn.

And all their pain, their muffled cries, ascended to the skies—

The tale of ruin told and read within their sunken eyes.

 

Ten thousand heads, ten thousand graves, beneath the evil guise—

The broken dreams, the fallen schemes, the Lord of the Spies.

Written By: Alan.Clark@WW1POET (Oct 2025)

In the Deep Sea of Despair

 

In the Deep Sea of Despair

 

Caught in a current, cold, and deep,

where shadows twist and secrets weep,

you struggle hard for one last breath,

adrift between despair and death.

 

The waves collapse, they drag you down,

their liquid hands pull till you drown.

Each gasp is swallowed by the tide,

no place to run, no strength to hide.

 

Your thoughts like storms begin to spin,

a chaos roaring loud within.

Disoriented, frail, confined,

a prisoner of your own mind.

 

The surface fades—no light, no sky,

just endless depths where echoes die.

Each pulse, a drum of slow despair,

each heartbeat whispers, no one’s there.

 

But then—against all odds, a light,

a distant spark that cuts the night.

A current shifts, a gentle hand,

that pulls you back toward the land.

 

The tide recedes, the weight is gone,

the ocean’s grip no longer strong.

The fear dissolves, the storm grows mild,

the sea now whispers soft and wild.

 

You rise through clouds of silver mist,

the pain released, the dark dismissed.

Your burden fades like vapor thin—

and peace, at last, flows deep within.

 

There sits an angel, pure and bright,

her presence bathing all in light.

A realm of warmth, serene and fair—

no trace of sorrow lingers there.

 

Her voice, a song both sweet and clear,

melts every ache, dissolves each fear.

You’ve drifted past the storm and hate—

you’ve landed now at heaven’s gate.

 

Yet there you pause, your heart unsure,

a soul once lost, now seeking cure.

Left to wonder if you may pass,

to enter paradise at last—

 

Where time stands still, where pain is gone,

where light and love forever dawn.

A place of peace, both vast and plain…

a world beyond the reach of pain.

 

But suddenly—a pounding beat,

a surge of sound, a fierce retreat.

Two breaths of air, your lungs ignite,

you gasp—awake to blinding light.

 

The ocean spills, you choke, you scream,

the angel fades—a fleeting dream.

Dragged back once more to mortal shore,

to live, to fight, to breathe once more.

 

Now gracious to your saviour’s hand,

pulled safely back upon the sand,

you whisper thanks, your vision gone—

no word of where your soul had shone.

 

No talk of gates, no wing, no song,

just trembling breath where you belong.

The sea lies calm, the tempest through—

and life begins its course anew.

 

Yet when the quiet night descends,

and waking thought at last suspends,

your spirit drifts on silent wings

back to the place your angel sings.

 

Content beneath her gentle light,

you linger there through the night—

her melody, so pure, so slight,

in restful dreams till morning bright.

Written By: Alan.Clark@WW1POET (Oct 2025)

Lost Child of War

 

Lost Child of War

The wind still hums your lullaby,

through hollow streets of gray.

Your name, a ghost on crumbling walls,

erodes a little more each day.

 

No one recalls the shade you wore,

the eyes that once could gleam.

The world moves on — a careless god —

that tramples every dream.

 

Yet somewhere in the quiet rain,

a tear betrays the sky.

It falls for you, poor child of pain,

though none recall just why.

 

The earth has kept your secret well,

beneath its mourning shroud.

Your silence hums beneath the roots,

your sorrow speaks aloud.

 

And when the night grows still enough,

the stars begin to weep —

for they, too, lost a fragile light

the world refused to keep.

 

So, rest, forgotten one, in peace,

your grief at last undone.

The world may never speak your name —

but the darkness whispers one.

Written By: Alan.Clark@WW1Poet (Oct 2025)