Another Day

An air force pilot takes part in a poetry competition.

At last, my name they announce
It irks me as to how it they mispronounce
With a rapidly beating heart, I go to the stage
Before I open my mouth, at my friends I gaze

They shout my name wildly
It embarrasses me mildly
With fumbling words, I recite
I think it must to them sound trite

The poem is about love and life and being free
By the end, I want to close my eyes and never see
The reception takes me by surprise
I am drowned in applauding cries

My friends rush to the stage
They lift me in their craze
The crowd goes berserk
It feels worthwhile was all the work

I open my eyes with a smile
Rising up in my mouth is bile
My plane is swiftly going down
My smile turns to a deep frown

My jacket has streaks of red
Blood streams from my head
Missing is a large part of my right ear
Blocking all that, the plane I try to steer

The controls are all working
I check for any damage that’s lurking
The glass has been shot through
The bullet out through my ear drew

But that’s not all that’s worrisome
Two planes swiftly approach as a tune I hum
‘When everything’s going wrong
Keep calm and sing this song

Now that the end is nigh
Meet it with your head held high
Shake hands firmly with death
With shining eyes and even breath

My accounts are settled with life
Now I bow out of strife
And go in a state of grace
In death as I was in life, a face'

With a jerk, upward, I pull the plane
The enemy planes after me attain
They shoot; the engine I shut down
Quickly, they veer away their planes brown

Now their planes are above and mine below
When I open up the engine and my hand I show
I shoot one down with relentless bullet fire
But I have drawn the other’s ire

It deftly turns downward in the air
I press the gun button to give it its woe’s share
My heart is caught in my throat as I realize
That the guns are empty, and no bullets will materialize

The enemy plane opens fire
My situation is worse than dire
Before I can evade, the bullets strike
My chances of making it alive, I don’t like

Time for that handshake with death
With shining eyes and even breath
My plane sits quietly, eating lead
The enemy thinks me good as dead

Firing bullets, the plane approaches swiftly
I switch on the nitroboost quickly
My plane pulls upward, piercing the sky like a rocket
And fits into the enemy plane like a bulb in a socket

The planes are immersed in a ball of fire
My enemy is dead like a bird on a wire
As I float down on a parachute today
I say to death, “Come again another day”