I Shall Be Free at Last!
Oh! Well-wishers don’t you worry,
Despite the ordeal I know I shall be free.
Every time I take a fainted nap.
Under the cover of a pitch dark night ,
In a foxhole squatted and crammed,
Loins hard pressed and elbowed,
Or at times laying on my stomach,
With my pointer-finger,
and the thumb locked onto a trigger,
In a makeshift trench,
I ask myself the same question:
How did I fare today,
And what is my fate tomorrow?
Today was ineffably hell,
Bullets and bombshells,
Like a diluvial hail,
Falling over my head.
And the Putrid sulfur,
Wherever I turned,
Invariably polluting the air,
Leaving a vitriolic taste at the back of the tongue,
And challenging the lungs to inhale.
Likewise, I felt nauseated at the awful sight,
Of comrades mangled and bestrew,
All over the site.
Nonetheless, despite it all the ordeal,
I did it, I am still alive and,
As it can possibly be, well.
If I could say the same thing tomorrow,
I should sigh and be relieved,
And the crusty dirt besmirched face of mine,
Ought to glow;
For I surely know,
One of these dawns,
I shall certainly would be free and walk head high,
Whilst the warmongers get drowned,
In a noisome blood bath of their own.
By Yared Heluf