For Queen and Country

Standing tall, ‘shoulder to shoulder’, saluting fallen brothers draped in our flag, Not the first, nor neither the last, dressed for occasion in a black zip-up bag, The unfulfilled lives, young, carefree but loyal to their command, Return from the battle of a weary and desolate, ruined wasteland,  But how many times must we witness such a tragedy this way? And who is fighting who? I dare I just cannot say, Bullets flying, bombs falling-innocent lives condemned to the past, To what purpose, for what reason, despairingly I ask?  Ancient place, wrapped in a coat of turmoil, unconquered since Khan, Spoon-fed propaganda, we digest, protecting us from ‘further terrorist harm’, And so forth come the bodies of mislead men and women I saw, From a pointless, confused, fictional American lead war,  As ‘For Queen and Country’, so the old saying goes, I’d rather not bother, will it end? No-one knows