Their just foul rags
for feral bullets to play tag
and spray hot hopscotching volleys
all over the insides of blind patriotic marks
from fresh face battlefield ingénues
and the prized glory hounds
all are hell bound
for their school game larks
See it, cackling through the breeze
canvass flickering, at full mast
standing smug with its own malignancy
as it ascents, against the wounded day
mocking cities, towns, villages
in squares, parks, town halls and front lawns
crew cut grasses with an old ball and chain
shoulder strapped like a preacher in his pulpit
rhapsodizing his soapbox perversions:
patriots and chauvinist, endless holy wars
proudly waving, demagogue posturing
It hangs over every human settlement
and we grovel and sweat in its adornment
panting in dread as it squashes the future
and hands us a chalice poisoned for measure
then toasts us our folly, to its worship:
for its unborn wars that it will declare
and for every child that it won't spare
its hosts for anemic ideologies flung as poseurs commodities From anarchists to theocrats Its their to wave for hypocritesfor half the world it turns to rubble and the other half it keeps in bubble for all the senseless beliefs wagedare debts our lives are cheaply payed to bombs that drop in the name of god and walls built to keep out the poor old sods
and its hangs, proud, a shadow over man
a noose in four squares, for the world to see
and its coat is many colours
of different shapes and varied signs
Red, white, blue, green, black
moons, hammers, sickles crosses, stars
But peel beneath the surface of its skin
rip open the dermis of the fabric
and expose its true fabrication
and its textiles seep grievously
with the blood, guts, bowls intestines
and other miscellaneous viscera
split, ruptured and kindly disemboweled
hot screams venereal, sutured limbs hysterical
draw tourniquet in your cauterizing emblem
for the maimed, stained, and pups driven insane
are the true colours left in the cloth
and no matter what its always blood
It's a parasitical symbol
Nothing noble
Full of bells and shiny whistles
Hollow and immobile
Gutless totems
Inspired for the Puerile
Here's to the monument of old tribalism
may its rotting ensign fly laughing in our graveyards
A powerful, insightful and incisive write. So beautifully written.
Thank you Rose Marie, its just seems to me that they are another example of something senseless that people invest their lives in that goes to waste. Have a good day
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
This is absolutely brilliant, Kevin. To myfavourites. I think that idea of melding the flag with the person is profound. There seems to be a sense that actions justified through defense of the flag take on a moral purpose and wipe away the base animal tribalism...or so goes the justification, the rationalization. Brilliant, Kevin.