Keystone

[dukealien]

Keystone

Belgium wasn’t made
for Union, but to keep
mad Europe wedged apart.

Geographic senryu/esoterica

[vagabond]

we all know
big flags alone
can pacify

[dukealien]

we all know
big flags alone
can pacify

Good point - Europe "wasn't big enough" to hold France, Germany, Austria, Spain, and Italy (with Russia and Britain at the edges trying to either get involved or remain uninvolved, unsuccessfully).  The problem is, the EU has no language or emperor... which sort of vitiates the usefulness of its (frankly) insipid flag, however large.

Perhaps what we need are flags with history rather than - like the EU's - flags against history.

Nice short poem, by the way.

[vagabond]

wasn´t talking specifically about the european flag.

and maybe i didn´t make the irony clear enough .
flags with or against history, my ass

[RiverNotch]

Keystone

Belgium wasn’t made
for Union, but to keep
mad Europe wedged apart.

Geographic senryu/esoterica

That's ironic -- without a keystone, an arch would fall apart. Ohhhhhhhhhh

Nice. I have a very vague idea about what this is all about, google led me to Catalan, but otherwise my enjoyment mostly comes from its form.

[Achebe]

Keystone

Belgium wasn’t made
for Union, but to keep
mad Europe wedged apart.

Geographic senryu/esoterica

Although it makes sense in the context of WW1, it makes no sense today because Netherlands, Germany and France - the countries on either side of the keystone - are pro-EU.

---

@RN - what does Catalonia have to do with the EU?
The people  against the EU are the less attractive half of the UK and their friends in the Anglosphere

[dukealien]

@RiverNotch and @Achebe - Thanks for the comments and approval of the form... without which, this would just be some kind of historian's aphorism.

To give background (without explaining!) Belgian neutrality fuflilled its purpose (for example, in 1870) until the German Empire felt it had to be violated in 1914 to win quickly.  Crack or remove the keystone and... we say it "falls apart," the Germans (who should have known better) say "falls together."

[RiverNotch]

@Achebe -- i quickly scoured the rounds when i wrote that, heard the Belgian rep was the only one who addressed the elephant in the room, at least with that old walnut compromise. genuinely no idea what the implications of that are, but it felt like it clicked -- at the very least, i didn't want to go the route i first thought of, the hundred-year-old tank tracks of the Ardennes.