Classic Poem

The flags fall like large, hollow,
monochrome leaves, said Ritsos, but
this isnt Greece. How can you talk of
changing flags as blithely as you
would a marriage? When we fly the flag
its as label to proclaim attitude,
and rightly so, too: the Remembrance
Day Parades, Expansionism, other
peoples wars; the main street of every
country town at the dying of day lights
up the Unknown Soldier & the long
lists of the Dead written in lead. No,
these things will always hold, rung up
once yearly, regular as a poker-machine.
Change flags, to acknowledge what? Whose
domestic honour, what custodial deaths?