The Dead Airman Poem by peter godfrey

The Dead Airman


There has been a funeral in Berlin.
Honours, full, military salutes.
A missing airman, '44, plunged in
A nearby wood, downed
With his burning plane.
And for so long was lost.
His family pain; an unknown grave
Found by a boy, now, amongst some trees.
The corpse interred by chance dug up
For better fitting rest with friends.
Grave fellows long hushed in unity
Who, like himself, young, cheerful
Nightly roared through foreign sky
To targets defined in early afternoon
Back home while groundlings
Loaded angers onto racks within the planes.
They swam in waves upon a sea of death
Diving, the bright sparks of youthful life
Were quenched.
His sister, old, was present
To see her brother lain
With others who also died
To give us freedom then.
But wait!
What of his victims?
Huddled down below
In blacked-out night,
Their guns the heralds
Of sufferings to come.
Wasting their words on prayer.
While kindly, nice young men
Released their fiery carte-de-visite
And carbonised, dismembered,
Making mad those who before
Were sane below, now hunched
Close to the eruptingground.
Blame? None.
But remember those ghastly fates
We visited upon our poor foes' gates.
They too must be remembered.

Peter Godfrey