A sonnet tribute to the fallen on World Poetry Day

Although I specialize in erotic sonnets, they are not my sole theme.  A few days ago I was thinking about the many soldiers that have fallen in battles or in wars (because many deaths in wars are not from fighting) -- from Châlons to Cowpens to Chickamauga to Chosin Reservoir -- whose names have been lost to history, or those who were barely ever known.  That thought inspired this sonnet, which I offer on World Poetry Day.


those who fought and fell

They are the nameless dead who had a name,
perhaps not known to many, but indeed
a person with a life, though lacking fame
and living thus uncounted. So when greed
or lusts for power gathered them and made
their individualities into
a military force, when on parade
their army had historic lines, and through
it they were given names by soldiering;
but if they died, heroically or not,
by battle or bacterium, we sing
soft eulogies to those unknown, forgott-
en one by one yet still remembered for
what they did lose or gain in fearsome war.