Quotes about flag, page 106
Father Abe
(Song of the American Sons of Labour)
The Song
O WE knew so well, dear Father,
When we answered to your call,
And the Southern Moloch stricken
Shook and tottered to his fall —
O we knew so well you loved us,
And our hearts beat back to yours
With the rapturous adoration
That through all the years endures!
Mothers, sisters bade us hasten
Sweethearts, wives with babe at breast;
For the Union, faith and freedom,
For our hero of the West!
And we wrung forth victory blood-stained
From the desperate hands of Crime,
And our Cause blazed out Man's beacon
Through the endless future time!
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poem by Francis William Lauderdale Adams
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Memorial Day For The War Dead
Memorial day for the war dead. Add now
the grief of all your losses to their grief,
even of a woman that has left you. Mix
sorrow with sorrow, like time-saving history,
which stacks holiday and sacrifice and mourning
on one day for easy, convenient memory.
Oh, sweet world soaked, like bread,
in sweet milk for the terrible toothless God.
"Behind all this some great happiness is hiding."
No use to weep inside and to scream outside.
Behind all this perhaps some great happiness is hiding.
Memorial day. Bitter salt is dressed up
as a little girl with flowers.
The streets are cordoned off with ropes,
for the marching together of the living and the dead.
Children with a grief not their own march slowly,
like stepping over broken glass.
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poem by Yehuda Amichai
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Absent Drums
I stumbled across a war Poet, in place in cold November
finding blank pictures, brief notices.
I saw falling soldiers, attention to line
I wanted to meet the author of those days know I didn't have to speak to him, all dead and awaking from unusual dreams.
Heavy with burst balloon face, eyes like a day in childhood, blurred and pastel.
Alive and hopeless, St George and the Dragon- monster still breathing.
He had time to shit himself, this shows a lack of imagination.
He tells me nothing! , has empty pockets.
a girl shares his photograph, holding her so close you could smell the paper she was made of.
a lover was here, the lips don't move, kiss dried worms in fresh roses.
Face down in grey waters, a rising and dying god, empty of soul.
war poet apart shows a lack of simile, he simply stinks and rots, glimmering.
I envy his insight, to find death before sleep, death in forgotten places, know the experience continue to write.
I read the War Verses:
dead boys alive,
buried flag and still wind in voices.
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poem by Mark Littler
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If I Was Captain
One day, one dusk, and then a new dawn,
Set sail for vast new shores.
Watch the afternoon sunset, son
Hear the broadside cannons roar.
All the way to the horizon boys,
Make haste to make port by sundown.
Take heed, forewarned, of who we are son,
We'll pillage and sack this town.
Dance around in the setting sun,
Laugh all day, sing all night.
Rum is a sailor's best friend, son
Drink till the new day is in sight.
See the foam froth at the starboard end,
Make anchor in the evening light.
Climb skywards to yonder crow's nest, son,
Prepare to plunder and plight.
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poem by Stuart McKenzie
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To Time
Time! on whose arbitrary wing
The varying hours must flag or fly,
Whose tardy winter, fleeting spring,
But drag or drive us on to die---
Hail thou! who on my birth bestowed
Those boons to all that know thee known;
Yet better I sustain thy load,
For now I bear the weight alone.
I would not one fond heart should share
The bitter moments thou hast given;
And pardon thee---since thou couldst spare
All that I loved, to peace or Heaven.
To them be joy or rest---on me
Thy future ills shall press in vain;
I nothing owe but years to thee,
A debt already paid in pain.
Yet even that pain was some relief;
It felt, but still forgot thy power:
The active agony of grief
Retards, but never counts the hour.
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Is It The Station Of' The Lost and Lonely Soul…?
Where is the peace…?
In the whirring's of my mind,
Cartwheel after cartwheel
Even in these depths of rem sleep,
There is no slumber.
…Dreams come thick and fast:
As the snoring, begins its thunder…
Why, even now the world whistles
In the silence of this nightmare my lord
And even now, sleeping, hot-pulses
Race like a train, with a dead river
On board rolling through, empty-carriages.
O' now babies are being born …wailing
In my arms, awaiting, their mother.
'Lord what's this crazy station, called'?
Here where plastic surgeons…
Is working-out of' a dusty bivouac?
Doing, jigsaw body-part transplants.
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poem by Mark Heathcote
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0082 The New Grave
You brought your watercolour kit.
For it’s so picturesque – the smallish church
in the centre of the village
like a mother hen at drowsy midday
surrounded by her chicks;
the red-white flag of Saint George
the only sign of life, fluttering like
an aerial footnote to history
(or for some, a corner of a foreign football field…)
but there’s a new detail in the picture
since last you sketched here:
the newest arrival is the oldest: death;
the oldest signifier is the fresh-turned earth.
The uninvited thought squirms across the mind
like the exposed worms of that rich soil,
how reassuring to be buried in this ideal
picture-book of continuity amidst the change,
a country churchyard. A cemetery
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poem by Michael Shepherd
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The Fairies
Up the airy mountain,
Down the rushy glen,
We daren't go a-hunting
For fear of little men;
Wee folk, good folk,
Trooping all together;
Green jacket, red cap,
And white owl's feather!
Down along the rocky shore
Some make their home,
They live on crispy pancakes
Of yellow tide-foam;
Some in the reeds
Of the black mountain lake,
With frogs for their watch-dogs,
All night awake.
High on the hill-top
The old King sits;
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poem by William Allingham
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Mafeking
Once again, banners, fly!
Clang again, bells, on high,
Sounding to sea and sky,
Longer and louder,
Mafeking's glory with
Kimberley, Ladysmith,
Of our unconquered kith
Prouder and prouder.
Hemmed in for half a year,
Still with no succour near,
Nor word of hope to cheer
Wounded and dying,
Famished, and foiled of sleep
By the fierce cannon's leap,
They vowed still, still to keep
England's Flag flying.
Nor was their mettle shown
By male and strong alone,
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poem by Alfred Austin
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Dark Angels
Their shadows stir and mutter
But too low for you to hear,
They often lapse in silence, when
A group of you appear,
They hunch down in their hoodies
Or they mix with the elite,
It's hard to tell the goodies
From Dark Angels in the street!
They populate street corners
Sell their poisons down the line,
They wait for you in alleyways,
Give in, and you'll be fine,
Their friends are dressed in uniforms
With batons, on patrol,
But ready cash backhanders see them
Under their control!
They have no moral compass
And in that, they're not alone,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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