In Flanders Fields

[TomInTib]

In Flanders the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place, and in the sky,
The Larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce hear amid the guns below.


We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.


Take up the quarrel with the foe;
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In flanders' fields.

[Sparkly]

1. Thank you, Tom. nt

[faithnotgreed]

2. beautiful

thank you tom

wishing you peace .....

[deFaultLine]

3. Thanks N/T

.

[IntravenousDemilo]

4. Close, but a valiant attempt.

You missed the final "s" in the title, and "fields" in the first line. And it's "scarce heard amid..." and "Take up our quarrel..." Crediting Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae would be nice, too.

But thanks for sharing it with everyone, especially Americans who might not be familiar with it. Are you a transplanted Canadian? The poem has been ingrained into the brain and psyche of every Canadian child of a certain age, since we all had to memorize it in school. If you're a boomer Canuck or older, you probably had to, too. And if you were typing it from memory, congratulations!

Happy Memorial Day.

[TomInTib]

5. I guess it takes a Canuck to recognize this poem...

My sweetheart who lived in Canadia for 25 years reminded me of this poem tonight, and I posted it on this most appropriate of days.

She told me about "Remembrance Day" in Canada when on Nov 11, folks observe a moment's silence on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month...we were discussing Bush's plan for a 30 second moment on Memorial Day. Short and speedy in the great US of A.

I, however, am from Texas. My dear Mother would recite this fine poem to me every Memorial Day.

[JanusAscending]

6. Thanks Tom,

I bought my "Buddy Poppy" last week, and am wearing it proudly. Umm, we here in the States learned that poem in Grammer School as well. I don't think it's a National thing as much as it is a W.War remembrance. (in reference to the last poster in the thread.

[Patsy Stone]

7. Thanks for that.

[WiseButAngrySara]

8. Oh, so beautiful! I love this poem. "We shall not sleep, though

poppies grow" We have lost faith with those who've died in this war, because it was an ill-begotten war based on human arrogance and greed. Fighting for 'Democracy' and 'Freedom' are empty words of meaningless rhetoric in B*'s mouth.

The words of Frost also come to mind; "But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep"

I posted a poem at DU that I had written about Ken Lay in 2002 when the Enron scandal broke and it was based in part on Flanders Fields.

[TomInTib]

9. 'an ill-begotten war based on human arrogance and greed'

Aren't they all?

Every day I grieve for my guys (62 of the 74 I served with) who did not make it Home.

Memorial Day weekend just drives it home a little bit harder.

[WiseButAngrySara]

10. I'm so sorry! It is not their arrogance and greed, but that is what takes

lives filled with hope and honor and "saw sunset glow, loved and were loved"! Bless you and them. Thucydides wrote that the entire world becomes a memorial for our heroes. I would wish that there were no heroes for this very unheroic war.

[TomInTib]

15. Do not bless me..

I am sitting in my comfortable perch over San Francisco Bay.

Bless those who never got the chance.

Not a chance.

[WiseButAngrySara]

16. Bless you for keeping them alive in memory. ...n/t

[WiseButAngrySara]

11. Here's the poem that I mentioned about Ken Lay, with references

to Flander's Feilds and Oh Captain

*************************************************************************
February 5, 2002

DELAY LAY; UNTIL YOUR POCKETS GROW
(LIE LOW, LAY)

Delay, delay, delay Lay
Even as your profits grow
Delay, delay, delay Lay
Until you too, lie low

Lay, laws are due to men like you
To protect the innocent
Let the foxes out of their holes
To reveal the source of the scent

Lay, laid, laying, lying
All your employees for years
Have been trying
to perform your goals
With sweat and tears

Lie, lied, lying, dying
We hoped your conscience would be frying
Instead you send your wife crying
Her woes, woes, woes
So life goes-- So life goes

My darling, my wife, my bride
Let us not tell them where we hide
The poppy seeds, row after row
That mark the place of disgrace

Oh captain, captain of corporate greed
You jumped off your sinking ship
And let your people slip
Never concerned with their need

While you take the fifth
To hide your millions
Don’t you know that
We have trillions of eyes
To disclose your lies?

Sinking ship, stinking rat
You must make it tit for tat
And give back all of that
To which you gave the beaurocrats

Delay, delay, delay Lay
While your pockets grow
While your profits grow
Delay, delay, delay Lay
Until you too, lie low

[Jeffersons Ghost]

12. K&R!

lesten to this great antiwar music: http://www.peace-not-war.org/Jukebox/index.html

[mortlefaucheur]

13. The great beauty of the poem

is that it in no way diminishes the "enemy"; the common soldiers on both sides died in their millions defending an obsolete political and economic order that must preserve their Nations.
Is it so different today?
TY, TominTib!

[knitter4democracy]

14. I was thinking of "Dulce et Decorum Est" today.

I taught that twice in my three years of teaching high school English. Still gets to me.

http://www.english.emory.edu/LostPoets/Dulce.html

Wilfred Owen
Dulce Et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

[ncrainbowgrrl]

17. that poem always gets to me.

:cry:

[Hekate]

19. Foolish, foolish Laura Bush, to say that poetry does not touch on war...

That is one of the great ones, as is Flanders Fields.

Hekate

[miss_american_pie]

32. She said what?

Do you have a link?

[Hekate]

33. January 2003 Laura had a symposium on "Poetry & the American Voice"

http://www.poetsagainstthewar.org/

From the site:

Short History of Poets Against War

In late January 2003, in response to an invitation to a symposium by Laura
Bush to celebrate "Poetry and the American Voice," Sam Hamill declined;
a longtime pacifist, he could not in good faith visit the White House
following the recent news of George W. Bush's plan for a unilateral
"Shock and Awe" attack on Iraq. Instead, he asked about 50 fellow poets to
"reconstitute a Poets Against the War movement like the one organized to
speak out against the war in Vietnam...to speak up for the conscience of
our country and lend your names to our petition against this war" by
submitting poems of protest that he would send to the White House. When
1,500 poets responded within four days, this web site was created as a
means of handling the enormous, unexpected response.

Since then, the "accidental groundswell" grew to include poets from around
the world. There are presently more than 20,000 poems in this, the largest
poetry anthology ever published. Poems from Poets Against War have been
presented in person, by invitation, to several representatives of the U.S.
Congress; many of them have since been introduced into the Congressional
Record.

We need your help to make a powerful statement against war.
Poets Against war is a volunteer organization dependent upon the financial
contributions of friends and members.

[miss_american_pie]

34. Thank you

She must be out of her gourd.

[Hekate]

35. Regular ingestion of Neocon Kool-ade must be part of her diet

You know she went through college and was exposed to this stuff at some point in her education! (Unlike her husband, who slept through his core requirements and boasted about it.) About all I can conclude is that the bubble around the WH has affected her brain as well. Sad, really.

Hekate

[dalaigh lllama]

29. I've never seen that poem before

Thank you so much for posting it. No, war is not the glory road that Commander Codpiece seems to think it is.

I pieced together a translation of the Latin:
"Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori" = "It is sweet and beautiful to die for the fatherland."

:cry:

[Hardrada]

18. Vor dem Laterne

Vor dem grossen Tor
Stand eine Laterne
Und steh'n wir noch davor.
So wollen wir uns wiedersehen
Bei der Laterne woll'n wir stehen
Wie einst Lilli Marlene
Wie einst Lilli Marlene.

A lot of Germans never got home either. And knew they wouldn't.

[SeattleGirl]

20. Thank you Tom.

I had sent this poem, via email, to my family and friends who are vets, to honor them this Memorial Day. I have a hard time saying "Happy" Memorial Day, because the meaning of the day isn't happy. But it DOES deserve to be acknowledged, and those among us who have or are serving, deserve to be asknowledge too, not just on Memorial Day, but every day.

[Raine]

21. BEAUTIFUL...

my mother used to quote that poem, nice to see it again. THANKS...

[Taxloss]

22. This one always makes me think of Iraq, especially the last two lines.

(It's actually about the Boer War.)



The whip-crack of a Union Jack
In a stiff breeze (the ship will roll),
Deft abracadabra drums
Enchant the patriotic soul-

A grandsire in St James's Street
Sat at the window of his club,
His second son, shot through the throat,
Slid backwards down a slope of scrub,

Gargled his last breaths, one by one by one,
In too much blood, too young to spill,
Died difficultly, drop by drop by drop-
'By your son's courage, sir, we took the hill.'

They took the hill (Whose hill? What for?)
But what a climb they left to do!
Out of that bungled, unwise war
An alp of unforgiveness grew.

- William Plomer

[knitter4democracy]

24. A couple more:

http://quotations.about.com/cs/poemlyrics/a/Boots.htm

Boots

INFANTRY COLUMNS

We're foot-slog-slog-slog-sloggin' over Africa -
Foot-foot-foot-foot-sloggin' over Africa -
(Boots-boots-boots-boots-movin' up an' down again!)
There's no discharge in the war!

Seven-six-eleven-five-nine-an'-twenty mile to-day -
Four-eleven-seventeen-thirty-two the day before -
(Boots-boots-boots-boots-movin' up an' down again!)
There's no discharge in the war!

Don't-don't-don't-don't-look at what's in front of you.
(Boots-boots-boots-boots-movin' up an' down again)
Men-men-men-men-men go mad with watchin' em,
An' there's no discharge in the war!

Try-try-try-try-to think o' something different -
Oh-my-God-keep-me from goin' lunatic!
(Boots-boots-boots-boots-movin' up an' down again!)
There's no discharge in the war!

Count-count-count-count-the bullets in the bandoliers.
If-your-eyes-drop-they will get atop o' you!
(Boots-boots-boots-boots-movin' up an' down again) -
There's no discharge in the war!

We-can-stick-out-'unger, thirst, an' weariness,
But-not-not-not-not the chronic sight of 'em -
Boot-boots-boots-boots-movin' up an' down again,
An' there's no discharge in the war!

'Taint-so-bad-by-day because o' company,
But night-brings-long-strings-o' forty thousand million
Boots-boots-boots-boots-movin' up an' down again.
There's no discharge in the war!

I-'ave-marched-six-weeks in 'Ell an' certify
It-is-not-fire-devils, dark, or anything,
But boots-boots-boots-boots-movin' up an' down again,
An' there's no discharge in the war!

--Rudyard Kipling

Here's an appropriate one for today:

LET AMERICA BE AMERICA AGAIN

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!

--Langston Hughes
http://www.poetrymagazine.com/archives/2000/Feb2000/hughes.htm

[raccoon]

26. thanks for that! Langston Hughes kicks butt! nt

[knitter4democracy]

30. I was looking for a different one of his and found that.

It seems appropriate today.

[Spazito]

23. Here is a video that, although made for....

Canada's Rememberance Day, is universal in it's appeal for a "Pittance of Time" to remember those who have fallen:

http://www.terry-kelly.com/pittance.htm#

Click on the top video link to see the video and hear the song, it moves me every time I watch and listen.

[Faryn Balyncd]

25. thanks...

for posting this moving piece.

[cmkramer]

27. Two poems

Tommy by Rudyard Kipling.

I went into a public-'ouse to get a pint o'beer,
The publican 'e up an' sez, "We serve no red-coats here."
The girls be'ind the bar they laughed an' giggled fit to die,
I outs into the street again an' to myself sez I:

O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, go away";
But it's ``Thank you, Mister Atkins,'' when the band begins to play,
The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,
O it's ``Thank you, Mr. Atkins,'' when the band begins to play.

I went into a theatre as sober as could be,
They gave a drunk civilian room, but 'adn't none for me;
They sent me to the gallery or round the music-'alls,
But when it comes to fightin', Lord! they'll shove me in the stalls!

For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, wait outside";
But it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide,
The troopship's on the tide, my boys, the troopship's on the tide,
O it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide.

Yes, makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap;
An' hustlin' drunken soldiers when they're goin' large a bit
Is five times better business than paradin' in full kit.

Then it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy how's yer soul?"
But it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll,
The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,
O it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll.

We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An' if sometimes our conduck isn't all your fancy paints:
Why, single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints;

While it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, fall be'ind,"
But it's "Please to walk in front, sir," when there's trouble in the wind,
There's trouble in the wind, my boys, there's trouble in the wind,
O it's "Please to walk in front, sir," when there's trouble in the wind.

You talk o' better food for us, an' schools, an' fires an' all:
We'll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.
Don't mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face
The Widow's Uniform is not the soldier-man's disgrace.

For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!"
But it's "Saviour of 'is country," when the guns begin to shoot;
An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please;
But Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool - you bet that Tommy sees!

The next poem was one we had to memorize in 6th grade. I still can recite it from memory.

"The Man He Killed" by Thomas Hardy

Had he and I just met at some old ancient inn,
We would have set us down to wet right many a nipperkin.
But ranged in infantry and staring face to face,
I shot at him as he at me, and put him in his place.

I shot at him because, because he was my foe.
Just so, my foe, of course he was
That's clear enough although

Perhaps he'd thought he'd 'list off hand like just as I.
Had sold his traps, was out of work, no other reason why.

Yes, quaint and curious war is, you'd shoot a fellow down
You'd treat if met where any bar is
Or help to half a crown.

[WoodyTobiasJr]

28. Here's one from Great Big Sea

Even though I have lost all respect for them because of their support for the Newfoundland seal hunt, this song still needs to be seen/heard


Recruiting Sergeant

Two recruiting sergeants came to the CLB,
for the sons of the merchants, to join the Blue Puttees
So all the hands enlisted, five hundred young men...
Enlist you Newfoundlanders and come follow me

They crossed the broad Atlantic in the brave Florizel,
And on the sands of Suvla, they entered into hell
And on those bloody beaches, the first of them fell...

Chorus:
So it's over the mountains, and over the sea
Come brave Newfoundlanders and join the Blue Puttees
You'll fight in Flanders, and at Galipoli
Enlist...

Then the call came from London, for the last July drive
To the trenches with the regiment, prepare yourselves to die
The roll call next morning, just a handful survived.
Enlist...

Chorus

The stone men on Water Street still cry for the day
When the pride of the city went marching away
A thousand men slaughtered, to hear the King say
Enlist...

Chorus x 3

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

31. From Siegfried Sassoon about the same useless war.

Attack
(from The Old Huntsman)

AT dawn the ridge emerges massed and dun
In the wild purple of the glow'ring sun,
Smouldering through spouts of drifting smoke that shroud
The menacing scarred slope; and, one by one,
Tanks creep and topple forward to the wire.
The barrage roars and lifts. Then, clumsily bowed
With bombs and guns and shovels and battle-gear,
Men jostle and climb to meet the bristling fire.
Lines of grey, muttering faces, masked with fear,
They leave their trenches, going over the top,
While time ticks blank and busy on their wrists,
And hope, with furtive eyes and grappling fists,
Flounders in mud. O Jesus, make it stop!

[DavidDvorkin]

36. It's a pro-war poem

Although those who quote it usually don't realize that.

The final message to the living is that they must take up the torch and continue the righteous battle against the enemy army -- i.e., the WWI German army.