Sand Castles

In the middle of a sky so blue
death came suddenly, sullenly.
Schräge Musik to my ears,
the sum of all fears in that
late October sky of brilliant blue
when I, one of the few, knew, too late,
the fate of a lapsed moment
in the foment of an aerial duel,
the smell of hot cannon shell
and aviation fuel assaulting the senses,
lowering my defences and sending me
spiralling seaward like a lame duck
who's wing has been clipped
by random shot, which this was not,
no, this was cold, calculated hunting,
shunting me down in an oil blown
maelstrom of wind, blood and fire,
flying by wire to a cataclysmic shattering,
leaving just a smattering of my mortal remains,
a few stains on that pristine strand,
where once, as a boy, I built castles of sand.
Copyright © | Year Posted 2020

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