The Battlefield Men by Nurul Azrin

 

The Battlefield Men

 

I see souls flying free

when buckshot and bullets shot through their bodies

 

I see smiles of calmness and purity

as their hands are smeared with blood and sins

 

I can hear the shouts of pain,

rumbles of bombs and grenades,

the silenced stillness of death

that lingers in the air

and the warm fatherly laughter

that comes from nowhere

 

I see fallen bodies of those

who are coming back to their home-

above.

 

Original Analysis of the Poem:

- The poem describes the situation of war from the point of view of a third person. During the war, the sounds from the explosion of bombs and grenades can be heard so loud. They can also hear the shouts of pain from the soldiers who are suffering and bled in the war. 

- It also describes the souls of the fallen heroes who are leaving the world to the afterlife (heaven). In Islamic beliefs, they believe that people who died to sacrifice themselves in the war for the sake of religion and their country are those who will go to heaven. Known in Islam as 'mati syahid'

- They have sacrificed themselves for the sake of their beloved country and their loved ones. 

- The poem describes the soldier's behaviour as they were sacrificing their lives, they remained calm, their hearts are full of purity even though their hands are covered with blood and sins. 

- The warm fatherly laughter means that as these soldiers are men, most probably many of them are fathers. Thus, as they are very close to their deaths, the warm fatherly laughter can be heard from memory. 

- As for the last stanza, what the poet is trying to say is that there are many dead soldiers on the ground where their souls already went back to where they come from.