There sometimes is really bad kind of dreams
which you want to avoid, to be waking,
when in your ears you hear your own screams,
while your body, mind and soul is aching

These dreams return like a bomb ever ticking
to the time that they come back with anxiety,
as if the past, the time of war is sticking
its fingers in the present life with impropriety.

Night after night as in sleep you plunge in
again you are in cover behind enemy lines,
you dream of escaping barely by your skin,
where you were trapped by some landmines,

about shooting to kill to be able to survive,
about as a duty taking someone else’s life.

Gert Strydom

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/nightmares-english-sonnet/