Red-rag and Pink-flag
power
rhymed verse
bitter
red-rag and pink-flag blackshirt and brown strut-mince and stink-brag have all come to town some like it shot and some like it hung and some like it in the twot nine months young
Red-rag and Pink-flag - meaning Summary
Carnival of Crude Politics
Cummings catalogs rival, flamboyant factions arriving like a grotesque parade. The short poem names contrasting colors and uniforms as performative identities, then states bluntly that different groups prefer different outcomes—execution, lynching, or a product still nine months young—suggesting violent competition and the cyclical, reproductive energy of movements. It reads as a satirical, disapproving snapshot of factionalism and spectacle rather than a literal report of events.
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