War Poetry – The Brutal Game

I’m sitting here now
Trying to put pen to paper
Trying to write something
That you can relate too
 
It’s hard to relate
To my personal circumstances
I’m out here in Afghanistan now
Taking my chances
 
Read what you read
And say what you say
You wont understand it
Until you’ve lived it day by day
 
Poverty-stricken people
With medieval ways
Will take you life without a thought
And now we’re all the same
Each playing our part in this brutal game

Alex Cockers was born in April 1985. He was a Royal Marines Commando from 2005-2009 and served on Operation Herrick five and seven in Helmand province for a total of fourteen months. 

How he came to write his poems. He explains, “During my fourteen months in Afghanistan, I had many feelings and thoughts that I was unable to share with anyone.  Under the stars; in the desert, rhymes would manifest in my head.  I would write them down, construct them into poems and somehow I felt better for getting it off my chest.”

Alex Cockersl,
2010