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Thursday, May 13, 2021

Socialist Sonnet No. 33

Nationalism, By Jingo!


Between green fields of the Somme and Flanders

All those young officers and other ranks,

Most civilians in uniform, thanks

To a populist conceit that panders

To national myths and visceral sentiment,

Illusions of sovereignty wrapped in flags

The perfidious politician snags

The heart strings of all those who blindly vent

Their discontents without any vision

Of how matters might be. But, lines on maps

Too often become battle lines, with saps

Filled by the dead. Come moments of decision,

How lots are cast determine gains or losses,

Greener fields, or rank on rank of crosses.


D. A. 

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