ramblings and things

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Flanders Red

This was once a sea of mud
Where thousands bled
Before it reverted to
A field of Flanders Poppy Red.
 
Do lines of ghostly squaddies
Plough through ethereal mire
In an endless quest to
Charge the enemy barbed wire.
 
Do Mill Bombs explode
As machine guns bark
Sending many of the brave
Into death's final dark.
 
How many bodies sank
Into that glutinous paste
Just futile victims of 
A futile war's waste.
 
Do those shades fight bravely
Or do they fight with despair
Knowing it was sheer folly
That they were ever there.
 
The Flanders Poppy thrives
It's vivid scarlet red
An enduring tribute to those
Many brave but wasted dead.
 
And the massed white tombstones
In their precise lines and ranks
Are tended with love and care 
In sincere but inadequate thanks.
 


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Flanders Red