war poems

MAN’S KILLING WEAPONS

Please say I’m not seeing this, what I see before me.

It’s so terrifying. I think of all those people killed

and those who die and I fall apart inside.

This is the cutting edge of man’s deadly technology.

I see Cobra gunships diving and obliterating

their targets…

These gunships first flew in 1968

and will be in service until 2030.

Just imagine all those who have perished

before the Cobra’s guns – Vietnam, the Gulf, Somalia and beyond.

All in the name of progress. They’re man’s killing

weapons to obliterate, kill and annihilate.

When Armageddon comes beware and prey that you

die first in a quick death by the Cobra.

SWEET SIXTEEN

Look at all those graceful curves and deadly lines,

this is definitely a warplane and it has been blooded in combat.

As we start this New Year will the sweet sixteen see combat?

Over the years names such as Iraq, Bosnia and Israel

have become world famous with the F-16 air to air victories

over Mig 21s, Mig 29s and Soko Galebs

and a whole lot more. It says, “Don’t mess with the 16.”

It could be a year of peace but that I somehow doubt.

 

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.

KAHLIA’S MISSION

All white moonshine heroine spectral gaze

of needle point stars lighting your way to holy city.

Streamlined like a wraith, as silent as the earth,

aviation fuel blood in your veins.

Calm pilot at your controls, autopilot plotting

your doomsday course to a target over the horizon.

One small bomb recessed under your white belly,

large destructive power for one million dead.

Back to their base gasses, atomised.

Not long now, digital clock ticks away the start

of Kahlia Akasha’s nuclear bomb

run on an innocent holy Iranian city, Isfahan.

What price World War 3?

No innocents on a planet of guilty people.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THEY WERE

They were boys going over the top to die

in their tens of thousands in the mud of the Somme.

Nazi youth best in the world bar none,

proved wrong over wide steppes of Mother Russia.

Hurricane pilots fighting Japan over Ceylon, Burma and Imphal,

lost pilots barely 21 made men in lonely cockpits.

Red Chinese boys laid bare bone bloody

against Yankee lines, human wave failure.

In the jungles of Nam stoned Americans kill

more yellow men and women, want their youth

back more time to do drugs without time taken up by killing.

Falklands calling, Malvinas battle boys to men

8,000 miles from home, for Britain left many behind, last colonial war.

Desert combat, boys to men now highly skilled killers

for oil and the engine. Today, where will it be next?

War calling more boys to be men, to quietly die

in combat or call for their mothers.

Fate will tell – now we wonder.

Boys finish school, part of the lottery of death crying

for more soldiers and innocents to die in death.