• Chill biting, winter’s breath at the door.
    Banging, banging, banging like so many soldiers marching.
    If you listen closely you can hear the battle cry.
    First the chant of numbers, a call off
    Then the asinine rhyme designed to keep the mouth moving and the walking dead awake.

    Shell shock and screams in the night, teeth black with rot winter blight.
    The earth frozen hard like pallets in the night.
    If you listen close to winter’s beckoning howl you can hear the poor bastards freezing to death.

    Teeth a chatter – akin to the sound of ice clinking in a glass of a good strong, warming whiskey
    Reminding the mortal shell of what was left behind.

    Winter’s grip makes the war all the harder, this fight for sanity,
    Suppressing shaking hands and cloying diseases instead of the monsters in the night.

    Winter’s toll like that of a bell rings high and clear with its depressing chill pushing through all the cracks.
    The wind is the worst – ever screaming in your ears,
    Each gust like an icy punch to the gut.

    I simply wish to end this wretched night and have spring eternal reign again,
    Where lily – scented breezes float fleetingly by the nose, instead of air like menthol
    and poison in the lungs.