Veterans Day / Remembrance Day 2005 (marks the Armistice that ended World War One)

What will you do this
Remembrance Day?
Where will your body stand?

What will your eyes look on?

What will your heart think?

We call it Veterans Day

My uniform is gone

My Mom gave it away

To my nephews

To wear on Halloween

I didn't really mind

I made some lifelong friends

Most of us made it home alive

We smoked a lot of dope

(The other day

that trip to Boston, coming home

at a gas station on the Mass Pike

I bought a Jimi Hendrix CD

and played it really loud

he was in the 101st Airborne

he jumped out of airplanes

three or four times a week)

Last year somewhere in Canada

a very young branch manager

chased an old poppy seller

out of his bank

Oh crap McCrea

Quit bellyaching

They break faith with us all the time

And who cares whether

We sleep or not?

They break faith every time

They do it all over again

And send our nephews

And send our sons

And send our grandsons

To another one

another one

another one

another one

another

They only wait just long enough

for the bank managers to forget

the last one

Sometimes

some old man

is selling poppies

on the sidewalk in my town

If I see him tomorrow

I'll buy one

memories of old wars

your Thames

my Connecticut

flowing to the same Ocean

memories of old wars

soon

amazingly soon

distressingly soon

pathetically soon

irresponsibly, criminally soon

all the young branch managers

who will have never known

about the Syrian War

and the Iran War

will chase the old vet

selling poppies

out of the bank

it would have meant something

you know

if they'd stopped

having wars

I'd wear my ribbons

(fast typing; excellent spelling;

kissing officer ass extraordinaire)

I'd march tomorrow

in the old men's Parade
if they'd stop
having wars

Bob

eve of Veterans Day / Remembrance Day 2005



from http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~wldciv/world_civ_reader/world_civ_reader_2/mccrae.html

Canadian poet John McCrae was a medical officer in both the Boer War and World War I. A year into the latter war he published in Punch magazine, on December 8, 1915, the sole work by which he would be remembered. This sonnet commemorates the deaths of thousands of young men who died in Flanders during the grueling battles there. It created a great sensation, and was used widely as a recruiting tool, inspiring other young men to join the Army. Legend has it that he was inspired by seeing the blood-red poppies blooming in the fields where many friends had died. In 1918 McCrae died at the age of 40, in the way most men died during that war, not from a bullet or bomb, but from disease: pneumonia, in his case.

Compare the mood in the first two stanzas with that in the third. Can you explain why people during the war interpreted it primarily as a pro-war poem although it was often read later as an anti-war poem? Who is the speaker in this poem? What does the speaker want his listeners to do?

---

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.