Editorial note: If you have not yet read our mission statement above, please do so in order that you can put our blogs in context. 

20 April 2012

Why Patriots are a bit Nuts in the Head

Patriots are a bit nuts in the head

because they wear

red, white and blue-

tinted spectacles

(red for blood

white for glory

and blue…

for a boy)

and are in danger of losing their lives

lives are good for you

when you are alive

you can eat and drink a lot

and go out with girls

(sometimes if you are lucky

you can even go to bed with them)

but you can’t do this

if you have your belly shot away

and your seeds

spread over some corner of a foreign field

to facilitate

in later years

the growing of oats by some peasant yobbo

when you are posthumous it is cold and dark

and that is why patriots are a bit nuts in the head

Poem by Liverpool poet Roger McGough (b. 1937) which appears in the anthology The Mersey Sound published by Penguin Books in 1967.

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 You might perhaps care to view some of our earlier posts.  For instance:

 1. Why? or How? That is the question (3 Jan 2012)

2. Das Vierte Reich/The Fourth Reich (6 Feb 2012)

3. The shoddiest possible goods at the highest possible prices (2 Feb 2012)

4. Where’s the beef? Ontology and tinned meat (31 Jan 2012)

5. What would Gandhi have said? (30 Jan 2012)

Every so often we shall change this sample of previously published posts.

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