In the Jungle

 

Overpowering greenness, besieging

with verdant hues unknown before.

Sapping mists of humidity

fogging eyes and burning lungs.

Young men do not belong here.

 

Surrealistic twilight glowing dull.

Sounds, subdued or magnified,

carry visually about the flora.

There is no dusk here

but like a candle burned down,

light flickers out and dies.

 

There is war here

but against whom?

Hidden is every nightmare

of children's demons grown

to adult dimensions,

corporeal beasts of blackness.

 

Green men, three to a hole

silently sit, sweat, swear and stare

waiting on blackness to subside.

There is a real enemy here,

ghostly and vague,

casting nightmarish death with ease.

 

Morning comes slowly, marked.

Surviving the night

insists another day suffered.

And nobody cares to think

about futures which occur,

random only in death, pain,

or another night ....

 

(c)RLT