The image you left us
still burns in the sand
Through prairies and rivers
your spirit expands
With always a smile
what had to be done
You did with a flourish
a true Texas son
My hopes they rode with you
as you ventured North
All foes you enveloped
their fates in due course
And only one cowboy
was struck with your brand
but millions of dreamers
— still wait your command
(To Robert Duvall (Gus): February, 2026)
Soldier/poet John McCrae
his words remembered to this day
On days of Remembrance
his verse both scan&dance
"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. "
Quote By _ John McCrae (Flanders Fields)
on the eleventh month, on the eleventh day, at the eleventh hour
under a blue hazy sky in my city
we honored those who answered the call and died
for the peace and freedom that we enjoy today
we have a beautiful war monument and statue
and a tomb of the unknown soldier
that we treasure everyday not just on November eleventh
all the wars are engraved in stone
World War I, World War II, The Korean War, Afghanistan
and it honors the peacekeepers who lost their life's also
the sound of the bands, the parade of branches of the military
the 21-gun salute, and the jet fly over, and the choir singing
the pipers and trumpet, breaks the silence of those standing tall
and when it is over everyone removes their poppies
and places them on the tomb of the unknown soldier
like red tears cascading
____________________
November 11, 2022
Submitted to the contest, 2022 Poetry Marathon, Mile 25
sponsor, Mark Toney
Has there ever been a pen as sharp as when Whitman penned his captain dead?
Was anyone more right than when Thomas urged rage against the dying light?
Did you ever read a bigger thrill than Wadsworth’s dancing daffodils?
What would be the cost if Frost’s two roads were to be lost?
Would anyone ever the Yukon see if Service had not cremated Sam Magee?
How much clearer are our skies since Angelou still did rise?
If, If were thrown in a trash can wouldn’t Kipling still be the man, my son?
Where would we go with out Poe and the Raven tapping nevermore so?
How do the poppies blow as McCrae saw them row by row?
Will Blake’s Tyger still burn at night as to make our world bright?
Where would the sidewalk end if Silverstein never took up his pen?
If Dickinson is nobody with breadth can somebody else stop for death?
Have you ever read about Burn’s love like roses of red?
How would one know the worlds a stage if with the Bard one never engaged?
In Memorial to All: And John McCrae
Every man has to die
In time
It always will be
To begin, to end
Is the way
It must be
Torn, beaten, we live
In time
Is for us to be
So many different worlds
But we are one
Meant to be
Words my mouth cannot find to speak
Flow from my pen with grace and ease.
Fated to the page, give me ink
To fight and battle with the quill.
With banners of beauty and truth
Facing, fearless, each hill I charge;
Parry and thrust with slashing words.
Never surrender to sorrow
Lest I might doubt and toss words off
As Doc McCrae in crumpled note
His aide saved so poppies still blow
Among the crosses row on row.
Infuse my pen with worthy points,
That endure like Frost and Villon;
Yet if my words can touch but one;
None for myself but only thee.
[with apologies to Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae]
We are the winkers! Short days ago,
We played all night, until dawn's glow,
Squopped and were squopped: for here we go
In the Fields of Winks, to hop them low.
Color Coquelicot
Blazing Coquelicot
paints famed Flanders Field Poppies
on battle-scarred land.
Honored too on coat lapels...
war symbol of remembrance.
Sandra M. Haight
~NA~
Premiere Contest: Kim's Color Splash
Sponsor: Kim Rodrigues
Judged: 07/14/2017
Rules: Write a Tanka or other brief poem using an unusual color choice along with a flower, plant, or tree
Coquelicot, (coque·li·cot) originally another word for Poppy,
and is the flower's orange tinted red color.
Listen to pronunciation here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5nR1X-QT1Y
In the spring of 1915, shortly after losing a friend in Ypres, a Canadian doctor, Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae was inspired by the sight of poppies growing in war-torn fields to write a now famous poem called 'In Flanders Fields'. After the First World War, the poppy was adopted as a symbol of Remembrance.
Blood masks the lea, the blasted loam
upon whose breasts soldiers came home.
The earth, herself, held each to chest
the mist of sky killed with each breath
as ruined green became their tomb.
Men strafed by shells and gassed by fume:
cast akimbo, blown to their doom
entrenched, barb fenced; death coalesced;
blood masks the lea.
Eight million French, their valor shown;
most shy twenty lay beneath stone:
Russians, Brits, Italians, Yanks, rest
thirty seven million, our best
slaughtered and listed in old tomes;
blood masks the lea.
An Ekphrastic done as a French Rondeau
after:Flanders Fields by John McCrae
John McCrae wrote a poem in 1915,
Called In Flanders Fields about his dead friend Alexis Helmer,
On May the third, after he had presided over his funeral,
Where graves spattered about the poppy field so beautiful and red.
The colour represented the blood that was spilt,
Whilst remembering the energy which was so necessary;
Red for vigour, red for bloodshed, both remembered,
And red for the freedom to be understand with poignance.
Read In Flanders Fields at
http://www.inflandersfields.be/en/knowledge-center/online/the-in-flanders-fields-poem
In Flanders Fields
In Flanders fields the poppies grow;
Their roots reach down to twine amongst the bones,
The mouldering bones.
Each skull in grinning disbelief voices
Its eternal question, for what? And no answer comes,
No answer comes.
There are no lungs to find;
Long rotted from within, from gasping breaths of gas,
From choking gas.
No flesh remains to clothe the
Bones; torn from limbs by hammer blows of fate,
Cruel, indifferent fate.
No heroes these, but common men
Who selfless thought to serve, to do the right thing,
Unquestioned right thing.
Their souls now wait deep underground;
Deep amongst the rusting, shattered fragments of twisting Death,
Of youthful Death.
Only the Sun kissed faces red;
That wave upon the land above, serve to remind,
Ever remind us.
In Flanders fields the poppies grow.
(With acknowledgement for inspiration to Lt Col John McCrae)
To the memory of my Grandfather, who endured the Somme and spoke not a word of it. Each year, he and my Grandmother made thousands of poppies to sell on Armistice Day for the survivors of that Contemptible Little Army.
' In Flanders fields the poppies blow,
between the crosses, row on row'.
So wrote the poet John McCrae,
recording the reality of his day.
Now after ninety four years have gone,
our use of the poppy has moved on.
instead of remembrance of the brave,
it sends millions to an early grave,
and today our young troops fight and die,
with many asking the question, why?
To protect the flowers in Helmand's fields,
this plant,today, such power wields!
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.