MAY 1942

Posted by Admin on 25 May 2006, 12:00 am

A perfect sunset paints the sky
with amber, purple, dun, and red,
and lulled by an illusory peace
we sup, and pray, prepare for bed.
Then, like a fiend in prison pent,
the siren wails its high-pitched dread,
a prelude to the broken drone
of German ’planes soon overhead;
of flares that show with lurid lights
the shipyard where destroyers lie,
now almost in the bombers’ sights,
from whence the Polish guns defy
(with barrels hot that night of nights
when probing tracers stitch the sky)
marauders who, frustrate, unload
their lethal cargoes from on high,
o’er fields where stands my new abode,
destroying ceilings, roof, and doors:
from hangars just across the road
a fierce inferno upward soars.
In concrete reinforced with rods
we’re crushed beneath the weight of sound
without (as if the Titans there
were locked in war) where Thanatos
from riven ground collects his share.
The ‘all clear’ sounds, we all survive
the vicious raid to see the day,
and from our stricken home we drive
to seek a refuge far away
from targets that the Heinkels lure,
where we may sleep and feel secure.
Beyond fear with shock, our state of mind
to future tragedies resigned.