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| United Nations members' national flags (Tom Page, photo) |
“When you set a good example to the world, you become a flag
waving on the skies of the entire world!”
waving on the skies of the entire world!”
“Raising the flag and singing the anthem are, while somewhat suspicious, not in themselves acts of treason.”
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Midweek Motif ~ National Flag(s)
Flags are beautiful.
We sing patriotic songs in front of flags.
I thought I would find many national anthems like that of the USA which glorifies a flag flying in the heat of battle, but my browsing through a List of national anthems brought up very few that even mention the flag. This made me happy.
Today let's observe flags and see what rises up.
Your Challenge: Write a new poem about a nation's flag and what it stands for. Maybe the poem is an Anthem, maybe it is a Pledge of Allegiance. Maybe it is a hope. Include a description of the flag in your poem.
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| Flags of Native Peoples of the USA |
excerpt from Colors of the Comanche Nation Flag
BY SY HOAHWAH
Red
Mupits’ breath, in moonlight, outside a child’s bedroom window
Hunter’s bones scattered on the prairie
Fragrance of Comanche gangstas who entered The Zoo Club
and assassinated the bosses of Underworld Seven,
a Navajo crime syndicate
Little Stoney Burgess’s footprints after catching ghost sickness
by running through Post Oak Cemetery chased
by snot-nosed bully, Blender Plenty Bear
Blue
Lips of the poisoned tribal chairman collapsed on the buffet table
at the 1974 Comanche Nation Inaugural Dinner
Silk handkerchief drawn over the stuffed owl used to converse
with the dead
. . . .
—Independence Day Celebration 2011, Dhaka
. . . .
ii.
BY SY HOAHWAH
Red
Mupits’ breath, in moonlight, outside a child’s bedroom window
Hunter’s bones scattered on the prairie
Fragrance of Comanche gangstas who entered The Zoo Club
and assassinated the bosses of Underworld Seven,
a Navajo crime syndicate
Little Stoney Burgess’s footprints after catching ghost sickness
by running through Post Oak Cemetery chased
by snot-nosed bully, Blender Plenty Bear
Blue
Lips of the poisoned tribal chairman collapsed on the buffet table
at the 1974 Comanche Nation Inaugural Dinner
Silk handkerchief drawn over the stuffed owl used to converse
with the dead
. . . .
—Independence Day Celebration 2011, Dhaka
. . . .
ii.
Moon-pale stacks of clavicle a hand
brushes dust from. I lost a word
that was left to me: sister. The wind
severs through us—we sit, wait
for songs of nation and loss in neat
long rows below this leaf-green
flag—its red-stitched circle stains
us blood-bright blossom, stains
us river-silk—I saw you, sister, standing
in this brilliance—I saw light sawing
through a broken car window, thistling
us pink—I saw, sister, your bleeding
head, an unfurling shapla flower
petaling slow across mute water—
. . . .
excerpt from Beginning with 1914
Since it always begins
in the unlikeliest place
we start in an obsolete country
on no current map. The camera
glides over flower beds,
for this is a southern climate.
We focus on medals, a horse,
on a white uniform,
for this is June. The young man
waves to the people lining the road,
he lifts a child, he catches
a rose from a wrinkled woman
in a blue kerchief. Then we hear shots
and close in on a casket
draped in the Austrian flag.
Thirty-one days torn off a calendar.
Bombs on Belgrade; then Europe explodes.
We watch the trenches fill with men,
the air with live ammunition.
A close-up of a five-year-old
living on turnips.
. . . .
(Read the rest HERE)
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| O fire, O soul Give us the spark of God-eternal, That friend to friend and friend to foe, One shall we stand before HIM. And the flame of Jatin, And the fire of Bhagath, And the love of the Mahatma in all, O, lift the flag high, Lift the flag high,This is the flag of the Revolution
(Found at DeskGram)
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Please share your new poem using Mr. Linky below and visit others in the spirit of the community.
(Next week Sumana’s Midweek Motif will be ~
The World is a Beautiful Place.)
