Lick Your Wounds

Lick your wounds and then

Bathe in some salutary praise as you've

Made it back with wounds to lick

And do not now lie down

Haphazard on the ground

Along the soaked wet red field of battle

Like so many others

That did not return

So lick your wounds and grin and raise a glass to say

You made it back alive

More so than

The less lucky or agile ones

Fallen fellows now lost

Raise a glass for them and drink it all down every drop

As such succour is precious and

To pour some out is such a waste

For ghosts can taste it not

And their bodies are not here to bury anyways

Let alone present to pour salutary booze

Upon the earth of which they prop

They have been left where they fell

On the field of battle

While you sit and drink and

Lick your wounds

By: Daniel Smallegange.