Giving is not Remembrance

I had already decided I wasn’t going to buy a poppy;
I haven’t since they put the Spice Girls on the posters
And made it girl power, instead of manpower: and
Besides, charities are like bookies
And you never see a farmer on a bike.

She was trimly spruced, a set blossom of aged apple trees,
The insistence of one who has a mind to collect the most.
I told her ‘no thanks’: and received a look that intended to whither
But only works on Sundays
With those that stroll out whilst I sleep.

The speech began, written by the tea boy of central casting,
I stopped, I listened, I estimated her under sixty.
Then shook my head and repeated ‘no thanks.’

Her list of remembrances and mine did not match.

Her list ran thus.
They gave their lives for us to have the freedom to:
Starve the poor and feed the rich,
To curse and moan and bitch
About the things we have not got
And those that refuse to accept their lot.
To continue military actions,
In far off lands, for fractions
Of reasons. And to hate
Our enemies and those of the fifty-first state.
For pensions and mortgages, index linked
For the illusion of voting, but I think
Her main point was the status quo,
‘Just give me a pound and away you go.’

My list ran thus:
They gave their lives for us to have freedom because:
Unemployment, no enjoyment,
Poor conditions without remission.
Homeless, helpless, without provision
But from the parish and the means testing man.

I asked her to name one man who had died.
She said Douglas Bader, I nearly cried.
And I wanted to try
To explain to her
The reason for the poppy
But a child ran up
Stuck a five pound note in the tin
And with a grin and a pin
Became suitably supportive of this national obsession.

So I will say it to you.

Those poppies that bloomed on the Somme
Were Kitcheners army, volunteers, everyone,
And the reason they died in such slaughter
Was command and control, or rather,
Rawlinson didn’t trust his men,
With their nasty little cigarettes
And refused to let them run
When the guns ceased firing.

Of course it was nice of Haig to start the appeal,
Since I believe it was him on another field,
That remarked, ‘it was so much worse
To see white men dead.’ Of course
That was Omdurman; in numbers roughly the same
Fifty thousand dark skins,
Laying out in the desert
For the looters and the…

Related posts:

After recently learning that the total U.S. student loan debt has surpassed $1.5 trillion dollars, I decided to write about what I have done to take control of my financial situation. So many people…

The account has been made. Next up, content.. “Starcade Update” is published by Starcade.

Rickie Fowler has withdrawn from the second-leg of the FedEx Cup playoffs — Dell Technologies Championship played at TPC Boston — with the oblique strain he suffered a week before the PGA…