Royal Air Force Museum, Hendon.

Just look
How strange and beautiful these aircraft are!
More beautiful than tall yachts
Bucking before the wind,
Or the swoop and turn of Heron Gulls
On a hot and salty breeze.
I just cannot believe how beautiful these aircraft are!
Strange and delicately beautiful,
Works of art designed to kill
With the efficiency of a lioness
Protecting her boisterous cubs.

The spitfire, of course, is a compendium of elegance,
A suit of courtly armour in classic British style,
But the Mustang is a racer born and bred,
A silver stallion, magnificent and proud,
That only the bravest of the warrior braves
Could reign in and pacify.
These perfectly manufactured works of modern art
Primed and burnished
To arrow through the sky,
Were the adored protectors of my early years,
Destroying flying bombs above the London suburbs,
Or strafing Romel`s tanks in Normandie.

Yes, just look
How strange and beautiful these aircraft are!
Almost surreal and yet absolutely deadly,
Salvador Dali could have invented them.-
I have no strong nostalgia for the nineteen forties,
I have only friends and family in mainland Europe,
And I just cannot understand why nations go to war,
No cause is worth a human abattoir,
But the extreme beauty of these fighter aircraft
Completely dazzle me,
I look at them as I would study a Rodin,
And instead of being appalled by malignant power,
I stand stock still in wonder.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
September 17th. - 20th. 2018.