The guns thundered,
The shells splintered all that was there,
Reduced to rubble,
His home was plowed down.
His wife lay shot on the streets,
Mutilated by the passing troops,
‘Salvation Army’, they called themselves,
Come to free Berlin from the Swastika,
His children weren’t to be found,
‘Taken for slavery,’ the survivors whispered,
He looked around blankly,
His soul was empty.
He fell down in a heap,
Stuck by a wayward shrapnel,
The bullet ricocheting off his shoulder,
To hit his broken house again.
‘Look at him!’ the soldiers laughed,
‘He joins his wife.’
‘Stupid man’ spat General Maskotvchy,
‘Dead before he tasted freedom.’
The troops passed to another town,
People welcomed them with flowers,
The days of the Nazi were gone,
The Red army had marched in.
More than thousands lay dead on the streets,
The unfortunate calamities of war,
The Allies congratulated themselves on a decisive victory,
The World War II was over.
‘Peace,’ they nodded,’is here but cannot last’,
War is the natural state of humanity,
The arms industry smiled,
War had been good for the pockets.
Few years later when the world had moved on,
A lone man sat inside a building,
Patiently waiting near the Red Square,
A Magnum perched on a tripod.
A shot suddenly rang out in the distance,
Frightened onlookers tried to throng in curiosity,
General Maskotvchy fell down with a thud,
A pool of blood forming on the streets.
The man disassembled the sniper rifle,
Stamped out his burning cigarette,
‘Peace comes at a price,’ he mumbled,
The price of a Dead Man Walking.
