At this, the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month
of 1918; the war to end all wars will end;
will end a hell more hell than the doubt of heaven.

   In time begrudging prayer, Private Seamus Pierce
beseeches:      
                "be-jaysus, don't take me now,
          here in this hour of Your hope."

After all this mayhem and murder
he prays,
               "there must be a heaven
        for this end must sanctify our means."

Private Seamus Pearce pleads not to die,
  such a long-long way from Tipperary
     such a long way from his home...

An order is barked into the hushed cusp of his entreaty.

        "Pearce, take four of your Irish rangers
        and secure that bridge!"

One last meaningless bridge between enemies
forsworn to peace...
How, at this time, in this place can such a call to arms
be important?
Or is it only for the honor and glory
of an officious British officer
contaminated by the poisoning sense of his own failure
in this war, or is it the officer's wish to avenge
his brother's death while battling the Irish insurrectionists,
at the wrong place...a stray Dublin street
at the wrong time...Easter week 1916.

Death is a scavenging cur starving for every morsel
of mortality,
at every scrap heap of history,
for every waste in time.

It is time to attend to the bridge

Private Seamus Pearce makes a last mad battle dash
at the last Hun machine gun,
and in that hollow spread of space
shards of fury ravage his legs, his arms, his lungs,
his face,
and time becomes not mere seconds,  nor minutes
nor hours, but a bridge where Being is ransomed
of memory...
   such a long-long way from Tipperary
     such a long way from his home

Outside him,
there is an unfathomable whisper on the wind,
it builds and builds and builds
as it floats over thousands of miles of bloody battlegrounds
surging up from the rat infested trenches
quaking the earth itself,
an ascending tidal wave of joy
till all that is all of the War to End All Wars
is one thunderous crescendo the whole world cheers at once....
HURRAHHHHHHH....

The war is over, and he is just another name on the
British army casualty list:
    Private Seamus Pearce
   Connaught Rangers

...and Irishman
condemned to historical oblivion.

he never heard the cheer
nor all the church bells on the Western Front
ring-singing out...

       such a long-long way from Tipperary
     such a long way from his home