The Poppy

This week I’ve a bee in my bonnet
About remembrance week, the debate’s gone sonic
It’s not just about the army, the navy or airforce
Or England and the English, but the world of course

Let’s not forget those families too
Who were left behind to suffer through
Never knowing what happened to loved ones
Fighting in other countries against enemy guns

The children without the father or mother
Those without a sister or brother
Off in a warzone fighting for freedom
So their families can live in peace, to move on

But all I see today is hate for the poppy
When so many have forgotten what it means, this paper copy
That we wear with pride, from Flanders battlefields it came
brought to us by a Canadian poet, John McCrae, Flanders Fields to fame

This poppy, this weed that a minority have come to hate
Is against those that are from our past and our future fate
The soldier, the seaman, the pilot know nothing of politics
Only of a job to do, their families to save, not heretics

I don’t understand the hate that a country can have for another
Although I do understand the bitterness of past deeds that still suffer
Ireland is one as it’s so close to home for me
But complex is it and not so easy for them and us to see

Racist English political wings are using the poppy to shame
As are other political parties that have themselves to blame
It’s time the hate stopped in this world at war
For in the end we’ll have nothing worth fighting for.