Long Airfield Poems

Vietnam in '68
By Franklin Price
08/10/2020

January '68, I arrived at Cam Rahn Bay
Found out this place, in Vietnam, was the best place I could play
Ground bound, in the Air Force, and living on the beach,
On a...

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Leslie Holden came from East Adelaide a South Australia town 
When on 26 May 1915 he enlisted in the 4th Light Horse of the AIF renown
He was a driver when the 4th left for Egypt...

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I volunteered for service in the RAF in early 1942,
When I’d just become 18 and got three shillings a day;
I became a Wireless Operator/Air Gunner right through,
And was then sent home to await training, the...

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'Twas the night before Christmas and outside blew a gale
Ol' Santa had a brainwave and on his sleigh rigged a sail
He was preparing for what lay ahead, an arduous task
Then waved goodbye to Mrs Claus...

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Old John's birthday was fast approaching, he'd be seventy-two
And his family asked him nicely what he would like to do
"Do you fancy a nice picnic or sightseeing on a train?" 
"No thanks" said Old John...

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A long long time ago
Before digital took over the planet.
My grandfather was n airman in WW2.
He never dropped a single bomb
or even fired a weapon in that war..
He was a bit of a pacifist
live and...

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Something I have long suspected
Might very well happen is in fact
Already moving full-steam ahead
Towards our seeming desolate shore 

But this bit I might as well confess
Is way out of the extra-ordinary fare
That the poets had...

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(N.A.A.F.I.  =  universal store, found on
every British military base)

On some bleak airfield on some Cambridge fen 
(that awful winter - 'forty-seven, I think) 
my mother, novice servicewoman then, 

crossed parade-ground like a skating...

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Brave men brought together
To fly the bombers
To hamper the power
 
Enlistment their will 
To serve the free
All humble men 
As history will see
 
Hearts shaking
On this white knuckle ride
Hero's them all
Side by side
 
Outbound flights
Planes...

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Stow Maries.

  

Wings of war like paper butterflies

once floated down upon this grassy plain

war machines of moments gone

honeysuckle and wild rose

now cling to silent buildings

empty shells of ghostly past

listen and hear within the broken...

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Sabre Jet

I pulled up outside an airport, and she sat there, on display, 
On a little pad of concrete, like a grounded bird of prey. 
I was carried in an instant by that bit of...

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Oh banish from the dim lit moor
barren windswept cold and more
the untamed nagging beast and boor

Oh darkened sky above the fire
smoke rising from the pricey pyre
signals where my hopes retire

Oh twisted wooden frame remains
wreckage of...

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September hues of school day smiles and bran new leather bags 
creative minds as young as baby figs with eager hearts of lore   
My days were full with mischief makers and bragging scalawags...

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While walking through the store I caught your scent,
A lady stood beneath the neon light,
She held a bottle of perfume in hand,
And memories returned into my sight.

Outside the school gates waiting for the bell,
I saw...

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Between Iraq OEF and Afghanistan ISAF I did about 120 months OCONUS..
A peculiarity about Bagram Airfield which housed about 40,000 people, mostly US enlisted soldiers from all 5 groups and the off shoots.. Well, obviously...

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I found John today.
John died yesterday. 

I read of John today.
I vibrate now to his pinch.

Somewhere by a poisoned river
a dead man was born...
Somewhere by a noisy airfield
a pre-writ obit finds me -
The news can...

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The night was dark, in the park when I heard a bark

then a ringing bell, blood curdling yell straight from Hell

A loud clunking sound from the ground had me spellbound

by the ploys of the noise,...

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We were flying back
              after flattening Coventry,
all of us cheerful,
confident young men,
          ...

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beneath circling clouds
in the depths of the ocean
with little nearby
lies a speck of an island
of but thirty-five square miles

green mountain rising
from which hot lava once flowed
most toward the west
where the people live today
in modest isolation

not...

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Bagram airfield the Ugandans handled the bomb dogs.. heading back to my CHU after a mission i would see them for their morning walks.. one dog famously wore motorcycle goggles, story is he took a...

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