Friday, 3 October 2014

hun poems

HUN 1

Deck of Glorious rising up and down,
anymore and we can’t launch.
See my mates fly off—now it’s me!
Full throttle and my Gladiator is up
and away, biplane wings biting the air,
Norway bound to kill the Hun.
What! No airfield with neat grass strip,
petrol bowsers, NAAFI shop? Are you nuts?
Where do we land? On a farm track or hidden
beach, a road in a town? No! On a frozen lake.
One metre of ice to be a concrete pad.
See the snow white lake frozen solid
over the mountains, past a forest.
Coming down, I see my mates over there—
no one bought it so I’ll land okay.
Defend Norway from the evil Hun!

HUN 2

Our little biplanes stand at the edge of the ice lake
ready to launch to hit the Luftwaffe, Germany’s elite.
Wind blows down the valley whistling and singing
over our fragile planes. A flare goes up
and we rush to our planes, engines warmed up
by our trusty mechanics. Start up,
taxi over ice, bumpy ride but not too bad.
Just think a hundred and thirty metres of water
under us in the middle of our lake.
Power on, we head for the sky,
not a bad idea this ice lake runway.
Where an enemy target? Into the sky battle bound.
Clear blue hangs over us so real it looks false.
Past a valley, over another, see the Hun!
Time for battle in our biplane fighters!














HUN 3

No radar to see them, no Spitfires here.
A couple of observers sit on a mountain,
spot the Hun, get on the short-wave:
“Here they come!”                                                                                                                                                  
I head for the enemy,
green crosses against a blue sky, white ground.
Don’t you know a Stuka is as fast as my kite?
So I, we, have to be quick. Dive down
get a Heinkel 111 in my sights,
fire my guns, turn away. A kill?
My mates follow me to get some hits,
time for another attack before they bomb
our frozen base. We got three that day
but lost two planes on the ground with five men
killed on our moonscape lake.
Move to a fresh bit, do it all again

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