What sort of mood, and thus images does Bruce Dawe convey in his poem Homecoming?

"Homecoming" is a somber poem criticizing the Vietnam War, in which Australia was heavily involved. His poem uses techniques including enumeratio, parallelism, and repetition to emphasize the relentlessness of death: "all day, day after day, they're bringing them home." The imagery used suggests corpses "piled" on so many vehicles that the numbers cannot be counted; the bodies are "in green plastic bags" and "deep-freeze lockers," which seems to contrast with the idea of the "naming" of these men being treated as if they are meat or produce, stocked and transported. Later in the poem, the reference to "the steaming chow mein" of the country reinforces this, the fallen soldiers as if on a production line, as unremarkable in Vietnam as its traditional food.
The homecoming itself is associated with dogs, as if the dogs themselves represent the stability of "home, home, home," their muzzles raised "in mute salute" as if in answer to the "howl" of the jets "whining like hounds" as they carry their cargo. The men are differentiated, but only in terms of general features which serve to emphasize the vastness of the carnage, affecting men of all types and races: "curly heads, kinky-hairs, crew cuts." At the end of the poem, the "spider grief" swings in the "wide web of suburbs"—this imagery communicates how far the net of this grief has spread across the country, as the men arrive home "too late, too early."