Oh, how beautiful it was with voluptuous curves!
Pitching & banking in shallow 'g' turns.
A vision in olive disruptive & duck egg blue
For this my father & I had waited an hour or two.
Earlier; so excited & saying “it would soon be here”
Recounting familiar tales of boyhood & war
As we stood & watched an ultramarine sky
Remembering the Castle Donnington gate guardian
He took me to see when I was a little boy;
Such a silent sentinel so proud & majestic.
A pilgrimage for us to visit a knight in shining armour
The ravaging scimitar to the armies of darkness long ago.
Oh, how beautiful it was with voluptuous curves!
Pitching & banking in shallow 'g' turns.
Author notes
For My Dad & R.J. Mitchell
http://www.supermarine-spitfire.co.uk/
Comments
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I enjoyed reading this poem.
Obviously a significant shared experience. This poem reminds me of the passion for planes the boy Jim Graham had in J. G. Ballard's Empire of the Sun. My expectations were confused by the lack of rhyme in couplets 4 and 5. I'm trying to ascertain the reason for it. Any hints? All in all very evocative portrayal with interesting historic references
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Spielberg's movie of the novel has the longest tracking shot in cinema history with the P51s (Republican Mustangs) flying over the camp. I have seen a P51 display. I think my father took some cine film of it. If I remember it was unpainted silver (apart from olive drab the standard USAAF camouflage) I was impressed, I have seen a lot of Spitfire displays, but it was rare then to see a Mustang.
I can't explain about the lack of rhyme. This was originally a longer poem that was in serious danger of being trashed. I thought it would make a good Kiwi sonnet & I think some of the rhyme from the original poem came with it. I was more interested in getting the idea over than rhyming. I believe we are seriously constraining ourselves with pointless Greek metres & rhyming in a Germanic language that doesn't do it well. Most early English poetry alliterated rather than rhymed. Even the 12th & 14th century poems like the Owl & the Nightingale or Sir Orfeo only rhyme if you understand the pronunciations (& there are some partial rhymes in those).
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Outstanding
You really brought this to life. This is the kind of poetry I enjoy reading, reflections on a real event and what it meant to you. An interesting and thoughtful poem.
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Thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed it.
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This has a nice local feel to it - "Castle Donnington" and so
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'Castle Donnington' (Birmingham) was where they made most of the Vickers Supermarine Spitfires. The factory was actually out of range of German fighter planes (BF 109 E), so the bombers had to attack it without fighter support, they never stopped production! Throughout history people have underestimated the British, we are smarter than most people think & we don't give up easily ... ask the Luftwaffe.
My Dad (he remembered seeing Spitfires dogfight in the war as a child) took me to see the gate guardian (a bubble canopied Mark 17 with a Griffin engine, 5 bladed prop, four 20mm cannons & 'clip' wings) when I was a little boy. We stood there in front of it. It looked so powerful & beautiful, no wonder it had the reputation it did.
It means a lot to the English, I have seen people go quiet & stare in awe at air displays when the Spitfire displays. A lot of young men died in those machines in 1940 so we can enjoy the freedoms of speech we have in my country. The entire world owes them a debt. They taught the Nazis they weren't invincible. When Goering asked Adolf Galland what he wanted to finish the Battle of Britain he reputedly paused for a bit & said "Give me a squadron of Spitfires".
'Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.'
Winston Churchill
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/tayside_and_central/7606722.stm
There will bit spitfire/lancaster/ hurricane? flyby on saturday... -
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Interesting, a bit north of the country for me though.
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very nice; I don't honestly have much knowledge of or appreciation for war machines so I had to look this up but I can sense how thrilling it was for you as a boy and how nice to have this memory of your Dad.
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The poem was originally longer & was supposed to contrast the time as adults we watched a Spitfire display together & comparing it to when he took me to see the Castle Donnington gate guardian when I was little. I don't think that came over well. For the uninitiated & non-English I have put a hyperlink in the AN.
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My father who died 2 years ago crewed B-26's in the second war. I took him to an airshow tht was to have a B-26 flyby but it cancelled at the last to weather. There was however, a p-63 with a v-12 allison that flew in and landed. The preatory movements and throbbing engine were impressive. Then to imagine a sky full of them...
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My Dad died in January, but he still remembers the Luftwaffe bombing the Midlands when he was a little boy (They strafed his rabbits ... he never forgave them). My Grandfather was in RAF Bomber Command. When I was little my Dad took me to see the Spitfire gate guardian at Castle Donnington (that's where they made most of them). It was like a pilgrimage. A few years ago we went to see a spitfire display together. I tried to invoke that feeling in the poem. The Spitfire has a special significance for the English, to us it represents freedom. Plus ... it was such a good looker!
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Now, I like this. You capture so much of the awed youg boy, the love for his father and the appreciation for the sleek lines of the death-machine, all juxtaposed in the 'ultramarine' sky of the endless summer of childhood.
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Cheers.
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