Hell's Portal

The speaker describes the horrors and devastation of war at sea. They witness their fellow soldiers dying and their bodies becoming debris in the ocean. The speaker reflects on the senselessness of the violence and questions the sacrifices made for freedom. Within the ocean's lulling embrace, the fallen are rocked, though there are no sweet strains of a mother's lullaby, within the bowels of megalodonic vessels, screens are locked as swallowing on their side, they slowly and painfully die. I stand on deck in a surreal macabre nightmare, witnessing my brothers in arms as scattered debris, fleshy, flotsam floating, as through hell's portal I stare at their blood, bone and gristle polluting the sea. Blown from my warm sanctuary and dreams of my homeland, the last few hours of bloodlust seem an insane illusion, the first wave brought with its sleight of hand, unforeseen carnage, heinous horrors and stunned confusion, a perfect paradise marred by swarms of virulent valkyries, storming through the ether of dawn's sweet breath, like a murder of crows scooping in greedy reveries, voraciously picking the bones of the deluge of death. In the wake of the carnage stretched out before me, my mind enters a limbo realm of distorted emotion, where we all doubt the sacrifice we make to be free, as the tender young bodies dance in the ocean.