"flanders" poems
late night by the holland sill
white framed and frilled
alongside the meadow
down by the grand
where cat fish
and cow pies
and silly yellow bees
make their stay
there are swings now
and empty barns
(with quiet corners
and broken walls)
echoing chambers
that speak of the past
...and little dogs
not big ones
the plaster cracks
and wheat sways
from a warm west wind
it’s about time
for that late afternoon pour
you know how it cleans the soul
old percy would say
and flanders
(the holder of those pigs)
who fed us good
with sow and milk
as we plowed the
dusty fields
into the
hot summer sun
i can still hear the screams
of river shore dreams
the grand slams
and flints run dry
the barks
and breaks
and bends
a world past
with forbes
and dolls
and crab apple trees
think i’ll take a trip
up the back lane
they’ve cut the brush
and opened the line
Feb 11, 2017
Feb 11, 2017 at 4:46 PM UTC
We did not come here on the orders of others
We came freely, our own choice, blown by the soft winds
scattered o'er many a mile
Landed upon Flanders Fields and rested a while
Then death came, disturbed the earth
Destruction hit the ground in which we slept so quietly
Awoke us from our slumber sweet
To witness tragedies and defeat
Now we are risen
and in our place beneath lie men and boys of courage, strong and true
Who fought valiantly but now lay slain
Our gentle roots entwine around their bodies that remain
Each dawn we wake for them and face the summer sun
At night our gaze doth meet moon
We stand tall and proud and dip our heads
And honour them that lie beneath with our petals red
Jul 15, 2014
Jul 15, 2014 at 7:16 AM UTC
After the wolves and before the elms
the bardic order ended in Ireland.
Only a few remained to continue
a dead art in a dying land:
This is a man
on the road from Youghal to Cahirmoyle.
He has no comfort, no food and no future.
He has no fire to recite his friendless measures by.
His riddles and flatteries will have no reward.
His patrons sheath their swords in Flanders and Madrid.
Reader of poems, lover of poetry—
in case you thought this was a gentle art
follow this man on a moonless night
to the wretched bed he will have to make:
The Gaelic world stretches out under a hawthorn tree
and burns in the rain. This is its home,
its last frail shelter. All of it—
Limerick, the Wild Geese and what went before—
falters into cadence before he sleeps:
He shuts his eyes. Darkness falls on it.
6k
"...FRESHER FIELDS THAN FLANDERS..."
Christ! Even the Son
of God can get it wrong!
Time his Second Coming
to end up in WW1.
To us he looked like one of the 'Un!
To the 'Un he was one of us.
Both sides let him
have it.
Him who had come
to die for us
and by God
He did.
Hung on the barbed wire
for days on end
we all thinking will it
never end.
Crying for His Father
getting on our ****** nerves.
Some say they saw him
at the Somme
some say at Crucifix Corner
"...forgive them for they know not..."
it went on and on
'...what they've done."
But I had by gum!
I pitied the poor ******
Crawled out under
****** fire.
Put my last ciggie
between his lips
made of nothing but
tea leaves....liquorice...treacle.
"Thanks mate.!" he gasped
with his last breath
turning into young Tommy
Smith at His Death.
A right good lad I knew
from Hudersfield.
Shell shocked
they said I was.
I wasn't.
All men are the Son
of God as it happens.
Even a dead 'Un is one.
The Son of God is forever
getting it wrong.
Christ! Will He ever
learn.
Timing His next Coming
to land up in WW11.
Other Wars
waiting in the wings
for Him
to come again.
Wish He would just
give up on us.
He's of no ****** use
whatsoever.
Death is a better
friend.
Survival as I know
is Hell.
May 1, 2018
May 1, 2018 at 6:52 AM UTC
This poem is dedicated to the fallen of the First World War, and also, to all those we have lost in the years since.
- Somme Harvest -
In the early morning
Dawn of the fiery horizon,
The sea of green caresses the land
And gave it gentle kisses
Of tender sadness.
On this day many an unlived life would find
Life in Death, but first must come Death in Life,
Indeed, a bouquet of barbs grace the
Dark, dank, *****
Halls of Morningstar,
Servants go to and fro preparing the sordid feast
Of unsung heroes.
Babes in arms are they, who shall
Ever sleep till the break of the final day.
Fields of Flanders infertile,
But for the harvest to ripen
The fertilizer of life is
Scattered, battered, tattered,
Sown,
Human manure, nutrient of vitality,
It seeps into earthly soil.
In the year of our Lord,
One thousand, nine hundred and sixteen
Did the farmers collect their greatest bounty,
Not all farmers reaped massive yields,
Farmers Kultur, Sickle and Hammer
Fed their maniacal hunger with rotting corpses,
While famers Lion, Bulldog and Bald Eagle
Wept their hunger with mechanical eyes,
Farmer Scythe, steward of Morningstar,
Laughed dry, dead tears of hungry joy
And sang the golden harvest song
As his blade swam through the harvest thirstily,
For indeed, the harvest was an endless
Smoky sea of blood green
And thousands were sailing.
Twilight gleaming through the sky,
The raging war god vomit’s dry thunderous wrath
And wreaks barbaric, savage, ferocious, ****** carnage below,
As sleeping
Babes in arms fly through the red twilight.
Vultures dressed in human feathers
Gather and crowd around their congealing cold feast,
With hatred sewn on their
Lifeless, lidless
Blind eyes,
They shriek their throaty, ******
Thankless prayers to idle gods.
A multitude of thousands upon thousands
Of souls sour to the heights of Mount Olympus,
Unshed tears,
My child, I saw you in that dusky evening half-light,
Flying, soaring and rising higher with your
Brothers-in-arms.
As I looked up at the darkening sky
My heart wept warm tears of ebbing love,
While my eyes forever dimmed the light,
And my baby,
My body became the Earth,
The phoenix has nested.
Nov 11, 2011
Nov 11, 2011 at 6:04 AM UTC
Here we lie beneath the poppies
Blowing in the Flanders air
Do not forget our sacrifice
Do not forget that we were there
Young men forged in heat of battle
Neighbors, brothers, sons
Lost in time, with just our markers
Lost to lie, beneath the sun
Remember us as men of valor
Remember what we came to do
We came, and died, do not forget us
We gave our lives up, just for you
Forget us not, beneath the poppies
Where the sky is no longer dark
Remember us as long dead heroes
We came, we fought, we left our mark
Forget us not, please pass the torch on
Forget us not, more than this day
Forget us not, we were all soldiers
And we remain so....all the way!!!
Forget us not....
Nov 4, 2015
Nov 4, 2015 at 5:58 PM UTC
"...FRESHER FIELDS THAN FLANDERS..."
Christ! Even the Son
of God can get it wrong!
Time his Second Coming
to end up in WW1.
To us he looked like one of the 'Un!
To the 'Un he was one of us.
Both sides let him
have it.
Him who had come
to die for us
and by God
He did.
Hung on the barbed wire
for days on end
we all thinking will it
never end.
Crying for His Father
getting on our ****** nerves.
Some say they saw him
at the Somme
some say at Crucifix Corner
"...forgive them for they know not..."
it went on and on
'...what they've done."
But I had by gum!
I pitied the poor ******
Crawled out under
****** fire.
Put my last ciggie
between his lips
made of nothing but
tea leaves....liquorice...treacle.
"Thanks mate.!" he gasped
with his last breath
turning into young Tommy
Smith at His Death.
A right good lad I knew
from Hudersfield.
Shell shocked
they said I was.
I wasn't.
All men are the Son
of God as it happens.
Even a dead 'Un is one.
The Son of God is forever
getting it wrong.
Christ! Will He ever
learn.
Timing His next Coming
to land up in WW11.
Other Wars
waiting in the wings
for Him
to come again.
Wish He would just
give up on us.
He's of no ****** use
whatsoever.
Death is a better
friend.
Survival as I know
is Hell.
***
***
"...FRESHER FIELDS THAN FLANDERS..." is the last line of a Preface that Wilfred Owen intended for his book.
Was first going to write a sci-fi thing with the Saviour coming down at just the wrong time. But as I wrote I remembered an old man I used to look after who would tell me about his WW11 experiences and of his grand dad's tales from WW1 so that it ended up as a mixture of the real and the unreal in the surreal situation of war and all it entails.
Nov 10, 2018
Nov 10, 2018 at 4:13 PM UTC
My name is Young Slug
and I write hip hop songs.
The lyrics sound as clear
as a lady slurping dongs.
Martin Luther King once told me
that my mother was a ****
So I whipped out a baseball bat,
and ****** him in the ****
I think he liked it too much,
cause he was moaning "colonel sanders,
stick it in my *** and make me dry like the flanders."
Dec 13, 2016
Dec 13, 2016 at 1:29 PM UTC
I was sent to work at the old Repat.
It was forty years since the war,
Those ancient diggers would sit and swear
At the pain of the limbs they wore,
The wounds would open as years went by,
They’d come for another slice,
That war was never over for them,
And morphine was paradise.
I saw one veteran struggle and curse
As he ripped at the buckles and straps,
The new prosthesis had rubbed him raw
As his knee began to relapse.
He tore the leg from his wounded stump
Sat on his bed, and roared,
Then swung the article over his head
And flung it across the ward.
The others had ducked as the leg took off
And bounced off the opposite wall,
‘I’ll have to report you,’ the nurse exclaimed,
‘It’s a good leg, after all!’
‘You wear it then,’ was the man’s response,
‘For it’s driving me insane,
What would you know of Flanders Fields?
You wouldn’t deal with the pain!’
My job was to settle and calm him down
So I asked him about his leg,
‘When and where did you lose it, Dig?’
The veteran tossed his head.
‘You’ve heard of a place called Flanders Fields
Where the bullets came in like hail?
Well, I was there with the Anzac’s, son,
At a place called Passchendaele.’
‘Our Generals were trying to ****** us,
I swear, on my mother’s head,
They kept on sending us over the top
Until half of the men were dead.
The German gunners would enfilade
As we struggled against the mud,
I’ll never forget the battlefield,
It was spattered with bones and blood.
They’d send artillery shells across
At the height of a soldier’s knee,
We’d watch them come as they parted the grass,
They were Grasscutters, you see!
Well, I was running with bayonet fixed
And praying for God’s good grace,
When suddenly I was lying there,
I’d tumbled, flat on my face.’
‘It’s strange that I never felt a thing,
When the Grasscutter got me,
It took a while ‘til I saw my leg
Was gone, from under the knee.
But that was the end of the war for me,
The end of the life I’d known,
I spent some time back in Blighty, then
I came on a ship, back home.’
I never chided those men in there
Though they’d curse and swear, and roar,
For every man was a hero where
They'd trudged in mud through the war.
That Repat. job was a fill-in job
And I left, still young and hale,
But I never forgot the Grasscutter
Or the man from Passchendaele.
David Lewis Paget
Mar 13, 2014
Mar 13, 2014 at 5:39 AM UTC
I fear how much my heart would bleed
To witness real tragedy
To sink in Flanders Field
To collapse in Choeung Ek
To scream for mercy in Nanking
To beg before the walls of Baghdad
A life of insulation
Pain relative to the first world
My heart hardly calcified
Compared to the bones of those who died
Hardly removed from the horrors of mankind
My drywall castle shields each breath
So hardly removed
From the stench of death
Sep 26, 2015
Sep 26, 2015 at 12:56 PM UTC
Lest we forget this Remembrance Day
The sacrifice of those brave men
Their blood spilt on the battlefield
Their lives given to protect us
Their lives extinguished to sand us
Lest we forget our fallen troops
Who lay dying in no mans land
Who's blood gave life to the poppies at Flanders field
Lest we forget our true heroes
Lest we forget our protectors
Lest we forget our guardian angels
All gone to be with God.
Nov 11, 2016
Nov 11, 2016 at 4:29 PM UTC
FLANDERS, the name of a place, a country of people,
Spells itself with letters, is written in books.
"Where is Flanders?" was asked one time,
Flanders known only to those who lived there
And milked cows and made cheese and spoke the home language.
"Where is Flanders?" was asked.
And the slang adepts shot the reply: Search me.
A few thousand people milking cows, raising radishes,
On a land of salt grass and dunes, sand-swept with a sea-breath on it:
This was Flanders, the unknown, the quiet,
The place where cows hunted lush cuds of green on lowlands,
And the raw-boned plowmen took horses with long shanks
Out in the dawn to the sea-breath.
Flanders sat slow-spoken amid slow-swung windmills,
Slow-circling windmill arms turning north or west,
Turning to talk to the swaggering winds, the childish winds,
So Flanders sat with the heart of a kitchen girl
Washing wooden bowls in the winter sun by a window.
2.1k
IN FLANDERS FIELDS THE POPPIES BLOW*
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Here my comrades and I are laden
We fought for King and Country
Here we are---the fallen.
‘Be proud’, was the national proclamation
‘ You are the chosen’
We left home and our loved ones
Here we are—the ill-begotten.
Some of us once upon glorious corridors
Of Cambridge and Oxford had trodden
The best and most fertile of young minds
Here we are—the forgotten.
How strong we then were, riding on the back of youth
Its dreams so sweet and resplendent
Rained by bullets in the battlefield
Here we are---death has spoken.
Pro patria gloria, dulcis pro patria mori
(Never mind if our hearts were cruel and rotten
We must **** all enemies over the fence)
Here we are---the terrible who were chosen.
Were we born to destroy and mutilate?
But in the battle-front ---all we loved and espoused had been stolen
Buried in dark pits of hate and revenge
There we were----inhuman and despondent.
Those whom we slaughtered and maimed
Didn’t they like us once did hold dreams just as golden?
Weren’t they who happiness sought as we did?
Here we are—to bemoan all the precious from such that had been stolen.
In Flanders fields the poppies weep
For us who are far from home and have nowhere to return
With the wind’s nightly melancholic sighs whispering in our ears
Here we are----empty, with dark sins upon us—for absolution is all we yearn.
• inspired by the opening line of John McCrae’s poem IN FLANDERS FIELDS published in December 1915 (Flanders is in Belgium where a million died or were maimed).
John McCrae (1872—1918) was a Canadian doctor who joined the army as a gunner but later transferred to the medical service.
IN 1918 he was made consultant to all the British armies in France
but died of pneumonia before taking up the appointment.
Aug 30, 2015
Aug 30, 2015 at 6:56 AM UTC
Once the Emperor Charles of Spain,
With his swarthy, grave commanders,
I forget in what campaign,
Long besieged, in mud and rain,
Some old frontier town of Flanders.
Up and down the dreary camp,
In great boots of Spanish leather,
Striding with a measured *****
These Hidalgos, dull and damp,
Cursed the Frenchmen, cursed the weather.
Thus as to and fro they went,
Over upland and through hollow,
Giving their impatience vent,
Perched upon the Emperor’s tent,
In her nest, they spied a swallow.
Yes, it was a swallow’s nest,
Built of clay and hair of horses,
Mane, or tail, or dragoon’s crest,
Found on hedge-rows east and west,
After skirmish of the forces.
Then an old Hidalgo said,
As he twirled his gray mustachio,
“Sure this swallow overhead
Thinks the Emperor’s tent a shed,
And the Emperor but a Macho!”
Hearing his imperial name
Coupled with those words of malice,
Half in anger, half in shame,
Forth the great campaigner came
Slowly from his canvas palace.
“Let no hand the bird ******
Said he solemnly, “nor hurt her!”
Adding then, by way of jest,
“Golondrina is my guest,
’Tis the wife of some deserter!”
Swift as bowstring speeds a shaft,
Through the camp was spread the rumor,
And the soldiers, as they quaffed
Flemish beer at dinner, laughed
At the Emperor’s pleasant humor.
So unharmed and unafraid
Sat the swallow still and brooded,
Till the constant cannonade
Through the walls a breach had made
And the siege was thus concluded.
Then the army, elsewhere bent,
Struck its tents as if disbanding,
Only not the Emperor’s tent,
For he ordered, ere he went,
Very curtly, “Leave it standing!”
So it stood there all alone,
Loosely flapping, torn and tattered,
Till the brood was fledged and flown,
Singing o’er those walls of stone
Which the cannon-shot had shattered.
1.9k
*i've become as lazy as composers
when writing titles,
example of tautology is as lazy
as beethoven's ninth symphony...
yeah, grand... but what a dull title!*
so i was reading this article
about bim adewunmi
about the singer laura mvula...
and you know how it goes...
leftist liberals tend to write
tautological spaghetti,
likened to bim's example:
'short-haired, dark-skinned
black girl', bim, we get it...
could have said rancid cinnamon
for all i care...
tautology is a logic of adding
more salt than the salt required
so it doesn't taste too salty when it
does... i could also proof-read
other journalists...
restaurant critics are the best laughs,
esp. when reshuffled like
a ****** cabinet of the labour party
to the opinion columns...
then it's not called opinions section
but table talk... a bit like saying:
do i woo the sea back into this oyster
before i gulp-down-the-hatch-it?
well what do you expect,
free democracy and subsequently
free journalism has a judas kiss /
brutus stab at everything,
why not laugh at it as a useless
get up in the morning read a newspaper
be pulverised by stories from kingdoms
far far away and opinions of people
who'd send ******** dubbed
soldiers off to the slaughter fields of Flanders
so they can keep erectile egos ready
for a salary readied...
journalists always divert the heat & fire
to the politicians... while
journalists get away with satirising themselves,
and i dare say, they are the clumsiest
satirists of themselves,
the most wonky ready to dismantle itself
noumenons in existence.
- journalist: huh?
- the public - (elvis') aha uh um (frolicking
without the stiff upper lip).
Feb 14, 2016
Feb 14, 2016 at 7:50 AM UTC
In Flanders fields the poppies blow,
Between the crosses, row on row'.
So wrote the poet John McCrae,
Recording the reality of his day.
Now after ninety four years have gone,
The use of the poppy has now moved on.
Instead of remembrance of the brave,
It sends addicted millions to an early grave,
And today our young troops fight and die,
Without anyone asking the real question, why?
In Helmand's fields the poppies blow,
Beside the compounds where they grow,
Surrounded by hidden IED's,
Planted to **** and maim with ease,
The brave young men sent on patrol,
Hoping they return alive and whole,
As they risk all to do their duty,
The poppy crop provides illicit *****
That funds the continuation of this war,
In which no one can say what we're fighting for!
Tom Higgins 12/11/2012
May 26, 2014
May 26, 2014 at 12:30 PM UTC
In Flanders fields grow poppies red
Stained by the blood of the youth now dead
Some who then could barely read nor write
But still marched bravely to the fight
They did not understand
For them the countries call to arms
Meant boys so young must meet demands
And for many that meant death
And others then did come to fill the spaces
Left by those now gone
And in their turn they also shed their blood
In their turn died screaming in liquid mud
As they died the blood they shed
Was the food on which the poppies fed
Poppies growing on Flanders fields
Flanders poppies, deepest red
Nov 7, 2014
Nov 7, 2014 at 9:09 AM UTC
[After Flanders Fields, by Major John McCrae, 1915]
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard 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 our 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,
the beaches of France,
Palestine groves,
Malaya's tropics,
Korean mountains,
Egypt's deserts,
Cyprus' beaches,
Borneo's forests,
Aden's marshes,
Falkland's heaths,
Balkan's tundra,
Afganistan bush,
Iraqi highlands,
[Keep list open....]
Nov 10, 2018
Nov 10, 2018 at 6:58 AM UTC
Thursday morning and I board
the Preston train, a dumpy DMU,
but less of a cattle-truck today.
Over the bridge or beneath
lines to Platform 5 to wait:
Branson's Scarlet Pendolino
will glide in soon bound
for Birmingham - wonder
who I shall meet and share
travelling moments with ?
At the caverns of New Street
I must wend to Moor Street
and a Chilterns train trundling
me south for Warwick's 1,100th.
birthday weekend and 100 years
since trains of Lancashire PALS
cattle-trucked themselves to
Flanders fields never to return.
(c) C J Heyworth June 2014
Jun 4, 2014
Jun 4, 2014 at 11:47 AM UTC
In Neverland - never to grow old
never to marry that sweetheart
never to have children and grandchildren
nor watch hair thin and grey.
Full of derring-do - more dash than discipline
lanky and loose-limbed they swank and saunter
not like soldiers at all
no doff the cap humility
to the old rules and distant monarchies.
From a newly stolen world
hardly secured or steady with itself
lodged on the edge of a vast continent
clinging to a rim of turquoise blue.
Now cramped
in the pock-holed sores of ancient lands
richly bone-dusted from time to time.
Waiting for the fight to end
to go ‘back home’ ‘over there’
to farms and factories; schools and stations.
Still there - left behind
in the archipelago of cemeteries
as far as Fromelles, Pozieres,
to Bullencourt and Paschendaele
in fields of beetroot and corn,
fields bleeding red with poppies
beside the Menin Road at Ypres
in bluebelled woods of Verdun
in the silt of the Somme
on the plains of Flanders
in the victory graves at Amiens
Monash’s boys - the lost boys
cried for their mothers
begged for water
screamed to die
hung like khaki bundles on the wire.
Commanded by Field Marshalls
who never went to the fields,
who played the numbers game
in a war of bluff and bluster,
who never touched the dirt and slime,
nor waded through the ****** slush
of broken men and boys,
never waist-deep in mud and sinking,
wounded and drowning in that shambles of a war
Wearing dead men’s boots
and shrapnel-holed helmets
tunics and leggings splattered and rotting
with dead men’s blood and brains
Some haunted boys came home
knapsacks full of secret pictures,
old rusty tins crammed with suffering
breast pockets held their grief
wrapped in shroud-shreds.
They brought their duckboard demons
to the world of peace
Gas-choked fretful lungs still brought
the caustic fumes with every breath exhaled
and from every pore the death-sweat of decay.
But most boys were lost boys
lost forever in that no-man’s land
that Neverland of lives unlived.
© M.L.Emmett
Nov 10, 2015
Nov 10, 2015 at 12:32 PM UTC
Mother do not mourn me for I am not dead
I am well enough in this hospital bed
My leg it is gone in a Flanders field it lies
but some gave much more, paid a far greater price
My comrades lost, never to return
to England's shores for which they all yearned
I just want to see you Mother, again
and let you hold me, erase all the pain
So do not fret Mother, for me please be strong
till I’m home again Mother, where I belong
Your loving son
Jun 18, 2014
Jun 18, 2014 at 11:16 AM UTC
Flanders fields evoke memories of the first war battles of Ypres and Paschendale where so many thousands gave their lives
Poppies grow on Flanders fields
Poppies deepest red
On those ****** battle fields
Where so much young blood was shed
Poppies, poppies nurtured by the blood of boys
Poppies deep blood red
Thousands lift their heads towards the sky
Perhaps to glorify those boys who died
The poppy has four petals
One petal for every boy who died on those blood soaked fields
Petals red and whole nations grieved
And mourned the loss
Of youths not yet fully bloomed
Jul 13, 2014
Jul 13, 2014 at 5:23 AM UTC
Poppy fields of Flanders, conceal a million tragedies.
A hundred thousand fallen soldiers, tainted the grass crimson.
And so they fell.
Not much grass left.
Mainly churned up mud.
Destroyed by the feet of the soldiers' in passing.
They are passing out forever.
Some were mere boys who pledged allegiance to the heavy crown.
And so they fell,almost children,
Without objections.
Marched as boys.
Buried as heroes.
An almighty salute.
(C) Livvi
Oct 30, 2014
Oct 30, 2014 at 5:18 PM UTC