Love and war

[Erthona]

V1.1

Link to picture is broken. In general, however, it is accepted that a poem will stand on its own.

Soldier saviour saves the son, but buries the father-

Generally in poetry, when a section is enclosed by an en dash, em dash, or hyphen, the enclosed section is usually treated as parenthetical, however this would leave us with the following:

"Soldier saviour saves the son, but buries the father Faith in humanity."

Is this what you mean?
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In, caseload of lead shed from bullion-beautiful gold;

I am unsure what the "In" has to do with what follows. It might make some sense if written

" Caseloads of lead are shed from bullion of gold"

That is if you are trying to say that war (lead=bullets) arises from lust of,or possession of gold. If you mean the "father" is buried in caseloads of lead, shed by gold" then I have no clue as to what this is supposed to mean.
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In Christian God's word, (dependent clause) appears unrelated to what precedes or follows

widow-fingers catch and tremble, (dependent clause) appears unrelated to what precedes or follows
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Losing like dug soil across the cold dusk of sandland- (dependent clause) appears unrelated to what precedes or follows
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Faith in humanity. (see above)
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A year away: (A year has passed since?)

soldiers' souls torn in the silence of solemn report

(if there is a report being read, solemn or otherwise it would not be silent.)

That the villagers will find, a dead daughter amongst mortar fragments.
(The villagers found among the mortar fragments the body of a girl, dead, the daughter of one of the village men?)
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Unwitting, the killer cries, slumped with his head in his hands.

Maybe
unconsciously the killer cries and slumps forward with his head in his hands? (Before it was soldiers, plural. However here you switch to soldier, singular. It can't be both.
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Like a memory felt along the scar of a once-split head,

What is "like a memory"? The soldier's head?
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This will jerk back when he sees children.

"This" what does this refer to?
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The majority of the lines are dependent clauses, often lacking a subject, and often not referring to one. It would probably be beneficial if the sentences were written out in order to make sure each contains the necessary elements to be intelligible. I suspect the writer does what most neophyte poets do in an attempt to copy what they perceive as the abbreviated style what is often associated with poetry; they omit words which contain necessary pieces of information. Primarily this happens because the writer projects these omissions onto the piece because they already know what it is suppose to say. Often the piece must be laid aside for some time, and then returned to with fresh eyes in order to perceive what is actually happening. It is difficult in the beginning to understand why we are not understood when what we have written seems perfectly clear to us. As we gain experience we may not necessarily becomes more adept at seeing the text the way the reader sees the text, but we become aware of the problem, cease fighting it, and begin to make allowances for this "writer's blind spot". The lack of clarity that arises from this blind spot is probably the primarily area of focus for workshop type critiques, and certainly it is the area that benefits the most.
Certainly it is difficult to accept (and often it comes with no little amount of self consciousness), that others see more clearly into what we write than we do. However, coming to acceptance of this blindness in ourselves is the first major step in becoming a writer.
Sometimes it helps to have this explained, and to know that we are not unique in this.

Dale