We make them appear everywhere now :
lamp-posts, billboards, compulsory lapels,
they'll be playing the Last Post
at an event near you
so bow your heads for heroes
in a minute's silence
again and again and again,
remembering though we forget.
Because only servicemen died
in wars, campaigns, insurrections
and the Troubles ( such an anodyne
word for all that suffering).
Bow your heads and please forget
civilians, freedom-fighters, protesters,
bystanders caught in cross-fire,
mistaken identities and mere suspects.
Join in with the Poppy Show
and march behind military bands,
the only ones who sacrificed themselves
were those with guns in their hands.