Warflowers

Not poppies
but roses
for one's beloved
marching off to Extinction
when the broad shoulders shadow their land
and the thin men follow
as thin men do
under  
a sun
beating down
like a stick
on
a drum
and
the pipes
falling
down
with
their whistles
thin
as thin men
and
their features
sharp
as the features of wasps
under
thin trees
where ash falls
on the rose
struggling under the scribblings of misguided missiles
backflipping in blue
above
the old warflower's beat.

________

I don't want to unfairly criticize the splendid work done under the label of the poppy flower by such worthies as those currently to be found in the British Legion, but more importantly I don't want to overlook the fact the Earl Haig the founder of the British Legion was the same man who sent millions of men including many from remote villages in North Wales to certain death in the so-called first World War; a war between several inbred royal cousins of the same European ruling clan or dynasty which had very little to do, if it anything at all to do, with the world at large and even less to do with the peaceful and the ancient Celtic peoples of Wales.

It amazes me how warring nations almost always manage to embroil the rest of the us in their local squabbles.

We do well to look closely at the world's leaders and their motives.