Battle at the Lomba River

That night guns roared
all around us everywhere
and the field was acrid
with the smell
of the man made judgement day.

Howitzers flung their projectiles
miles high into the sky
flying by past the horizon
like glowing stars.

Tanks and armoured cars
crunched, raced on
over trees, anthills and almost anything
coughing death left and right
through flaming barrels

and some lions, leopards, hyenas,
jackals, suricates, scorpions
and snakes in the veldt
thought that this night
the world will come to an end

and later still the world
went on like before
while man had a armistice
and then again another war.

poem by Gert Strydom
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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