WHAT DOES THIS POEM MEAN? threes by carl sandburg... i got write tooo pages cant get started?

Question

I WAS a boy when I heard three red words
a thousand Frenchmen died in the streets
for: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity—I asked
why men die for words.

I was older; men with mustaches, sideburns,
lilacs, told me the high golden words are:
Mother, Home, and Heaven—other older men with
face decorations said: God, Duty, Immortality
—they sang these threes slow from deep lungs.

Years ticked off their say-so on the great clocks
of doom and damnation, soup and nuts: meteors flashed
their say-so: and out of great Russia came three
dusky syllables workmen took guns and went out to die
for: Bread, Peace, Land.

And I met a marine of the U.S.A., a leatherneck with a girl on his knee for a memory in ports circling the earth and he said: Tell me how to say three things and I always get by—gimme a plate of ham and eggs—how much?—and—do you love me, kid?

Answer 1

I would say this is a philosophical poem about all the many things that people fight for. That is why there are so many wars, and so many different governments. No body fights for the same things and when they do, they usually fight for different reasons.

Answer 2

Liberty, Equality, Fraternity = youth not understanding idealism

Mother, Home, and Heaven = Family men and their concerns

God, Duty, Immortality = Dying men

Bread, Peace, Land = a country's needs for her people

gimme a plate of ham and eggs
how much
do you love me, kid = everyman, feed him, his body, his mind and his soul.

Take it from there. Hope this helps, good luck on expanding the ideas.

Answer 3

i'm ingesting Bordeaux (Chateau Branda, Saint-Emilion 2003) on an identical time as answering this question, and that i truthfully like your poem. It has no longer something to do with the wine. Even thoroughly sober, i could like it. i think of i could relatively opt to be waiting to make journeys to Mars yet come again to Earth besides.