J
jrhume
Guest
The Door Gunner
He walks the path along the Wall, stepping back once more,
treads again the landing skid, and chopper cabin floor,
smells jet fuel and engine oil - scents buried deep in his brain -
stinking paddies and diesel smoke, gun metal steaming in rain.
Out of the past, the squeal of track, thud-thud of cannonade,
and over all - sight, sound and smell - thump of rotor blades.
He stops before the tall black panel listing the dead of his year,
traces names, recalls lost faces and the coppery taste of fear.
Pilots, gunners, and crewchiefs, deaths carved out in black,
the touch of cool dark stone sends memories flooding back.
Fates decided in dust and smoke, sent home in a casket of metal,
or, perhaps, a soldier's grave, unknown - at the edge of battle.
Strangers once, ranked all about, now a brotherhood of names,
met, perhaps, over there, in the course of the old grim games?
Infantrymen perched in the door, feet on the skid - **** just below -
locked and loaded, going in hot, death waiting - no one could know.
Did he see them come back - blood-soaked, muddy, and broken -
carried by men who return to the battle, sorrows forever unspoken?
In a landing zone torn by tracers, a man is hit, down on his knees.
The gunner is firing - weapon bucking - ripping the green trees.
Weeping, he steps back from the Wall.
Noise and shooting fade away.
A good woman holds him tightly.
It's okay.
It's okay.
© JR Hume, November, 2000
Military poetry, anyone? Mr. Kirkpatrick, what about this one?
He walks the path along the Wall, stepping back once more,
treads again the landing skid, and chopper cabin floor,
smells jet fuel and engine oil - scents buried deep in his brain -
stinking paddies and diesel smoke, gun metal steaming in rain.
Out of the past, the squeal of track, thud-thud of cannonade,
and over all - sight, sound and smell - thump of rotor blades.
He stops before the tall black panel listing the dead of his year,
traces names, recalls lost faces and the coppery taste of fear.
Pilots, gunners, and crewchiefs, deaths carved out in black,
the touch of cool dark stone sends memories flooding back.
Fates decided in dust and smoke, sent home in a casket of metal,
or, perhaps, a soldier's grave, unknown - at the edge of battle.
Strangers once, ranked all about, now a brotherhood of names,
met, perhaps, over there, in the course of the old grim games?
Infantrymen perched in the door, feet on the skid - **** just below -
locked and loaded, going in hot, death waiting - no one could know.
Did he see them come back - blood-soaked, muddy, and broken -
carried by men who return to the battle, sorrows forever unspoken?
In a landing zone torn by tracers, a man is hit, down on his knees.
The gunner is firing - weapon bucking - ripping the green trees.
Weeping, he steps back from the Wall.
Noise and shooting fade away.
A good woman holds him tightly.
It's okay.
It's okay.
© JR Hume, November, 2000
Military poetry, anyone? Mr. Kirkpatrick, what about this one?
