To Sister Kate in Mountain Language

From the Helicopter's gut
flies amnesty and enemy,
over the plains of VC forests,
along the young men's guarded rivers
wider than the DM zone,
to where a bouy rings foggy bell tones
amid the bones; MacArthur's wrecks,
bleached attractive by their age.

This is where the clumsy sea-birds
lift themselves, like Silver Planes
through the Sun and warm sea-breezes,
across the air-force real-estate;
where the Little Boy was lifted
by the Yankee Pilot's Mother,
and flew and failed and devastated
the Children and the Samurai.

But all is light; these ages missing
tradgedy and circumstance.
The white clothed sailors in the sunshine
hold their hats against the wind.
Jinxed, the distance through the sea-lanes,
jewelled with foam and fairy terns.
Down below, Gondwana battles
for the life of Zato Kujira.

We leave behind the Kyo Maru,
in my mind, destroyed and empty,
vapourised by France's H-bomb,
not sunk by France's secret service.
At soundspeed, loosed, our theory beckoned
through this fragile hydrosphere,
amongst the waves, the night-time sliver
through the doors of conference.

Across the US desert test-ground,
over the green of Ozark mountains,
to call control with thirteen's problem
and a tale of engine death.
Finally we reach the Ocean,
through the wind-blown breaker's jaws,
over extended missile ranges,
our journey's subject's empty dreamtime.

Keywords for this Poem

Enola Gay
Gondwana
Fairy Tern
Kyo Maru
Zato Kujira

Kobayashi Maru ( But only because Kyo Maru reminded me of it)