Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, GHOSTS (THREE YEARS AFTER THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN), by JAMES MONAHAN


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

GHOSTS (THREE YEARS AFTER THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN), by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Night bomber pilot, just a fraction drunk
Last Line: "they say, they say they do. ..."
Subject(s): Air Warfare; Bombs; Death; Ghosts; Supernatural; World War Ii; Dead, The; Second World War


NIGHT bomber pilot, just a fraction drunk:
I tell you there are ghosts —
new ones between, say, Brighton and the stars.
I tell you. (And he struck the shiny bar,
making the glasses splash.) Oh, I have met them
above where the hops would be
or where the downs
are rashed with bungalows towards the sea. ...
That night ...
all much the same it seemed, the Ruhr a white
carpet of agony,
for us the tight
instants of Junkers, when you think — like sharks
they're smelling your blood across that dreadful sky.
And all that flak and, as I say, the Ruhr
bright on our faces like the mask of hell.
Oh, it was bad enough — mind you, no worse
than other nights, not so to make you mad
and hear things. ...
Well, the Ruhr was far behind
and we towards home, all checked for damage done
and not much found;
so thinking silently about the ground
and food there. Well — you know the Intercom? —
it started to talk. That's what it was. Just that.
First crackly fragments, things like a flight of Spits
correcting formation as they took the air,
then laughs from "Dick" to "Rabbit", "Johnny" joining
the quips for a moment — "What the devil's this?"
I called each one of them, the six, my crew,
"Do you hear what I hear? And which of you
is talking this lunatic stuff?" They all had heard.
And no one had said a word.
But Bill said "Listen" —
and there it was again, jokes, then a warning
"Dorniers starboard, low"; a silence after,
stretching and stretching to a single call,
once, twice, three times and then a fourth time — "Rabbit,
you O.K., Rabbit?" There was no reply.
"You O.K., Rabbit?" "Oh my God," said Bill,
"I knew that chap. That chap's been dead three years.
Spit caught by five great Huns near Beachy Head.
Remember," he said, "that day the East-end docks
first got it bad? We got a hundred down.
But they got Rabbit." Bill said, "Oh my God,
it was three years ago this very day."
And down the Intercom his voice had risen
high to a jangling shout. It snapped off short
to the queerest quiet through the engines' roar.
And not a sound
from me or the rest or Bill. And no more voices.
But all the night around
was busy with the wings of the three-year-dead
and we through their territory riding
like wanderers returned to yesterday. ...
No ... their voice did come again,
their voice but big as the wind,
their voice but it was desperately sad,
"Ah, we were proud, were proud," then like a sigh,
"Do they remember us?" ... Far, dwindling, lost,
"They say, they say they do. ..."





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