Poetry Explorer


Classic and Contemporary Poetry


SPANISH WINGS: SENOR by H. BABCOCK

First Line: WE SLAMMED DOWN 3000 FEET
Last Line: THE RUMBLE OF THE ARTILLERY PAID NO ATTENTION.
Subject(s): AVIATION & AVIATORS; SPANISH CIVIL WAR (1936-1939); AIRPLANES; AIR PILOTS;

We slammed down 3000 feet
Into a ground haze
And split the Heinkels into a broken mass
Of flashing wings and slow-twisting fuselages.

Burnt powder swirled
Sharp into the air between me and the dash;
A wing turned slow in the circle of my ring sight.
Smoke poured back in a fantastic festoon
Far down a clear sky . . . .

Then a thousand-pointed star
filled the whole heavens and the universe.
The rebels saw my ship
Burn its screaming way
Like a plummet
Into the snow gulches
Above the city of a thousand dead.

The rumble of the artillery paid no attention.



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