You will not grow this poppy

In carefully tended soil

Or gently weeded borders

So do not waste your toil

Put away your gardening tools

Your spade, your fork, your rake

Do not waste your fancy pots

By making this mistake

 

Believing you will cultivate

This gracefully-nodding plant

To show off to your neighbours

For your payment will be scant

Put away your fancy thoughts

You’ll work for no reward

Do not waste the daydreams

That will never strike a chord

 

You will not grow this poppy

In carefully-tended soil

Or gently-weeded borders

So, do not waste your toil

This poppy grows in No-Man’s Land

Its soil disturbed in tons

Instead of water, pour on blood

From the wrath of a thousand guns

 

For fertilizer, feed it bones

And from death, life will spring

A swathe of vermillion, scarlet, crimson

To camouflage mankind’s sins

A blanket of red now comforts we dead

Us long-forgotten lads

Lost in action to the merciless guns:

Husbands, brothers, sons, and dads

 

 

* * * * *

 

 

(Saturday, 27^th October 2018)