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.
