This little story has been knocking around in my head for about 40 years. True events was remind of this by a Poem called Lit from _Monocle_ at. He generously allowed me to try my hand at a different point of view. So here is a poor piece of work.
Rockets coming in
Yellow trails into the night
Lost in the clouds in flight
INCOMING INCOMING
You scream over the net
Sirens wailing the warning
Up Up and Up they go
F-4’s Roaring down the Runway
The rockets impact
Flares up
F-4’s lift off into the air
avoiding your flares
into the clouds on pink tails of hot spiraling light
Glowing kerosene smell in the air
warmth from the engines
warm first time this night
You sight in on the launch site
You have permission you fire
You can’t reach them cause they are long gone
You feel better
Quickie team responds
fires 90 lighting up the world with its light
and so it goes
F-4 Phantom Night Preparation
raw. smoke trails.
Visceral work, my friend.
f-4 is very affecting. ‘incoming incoming’ – chilling, the whole thing real & disturbing, making beautiful pictures with ugly realities.
I keep trying to make a comment then deleting it because the comments already here say exactly what I want to in much better ways. Can I just say “Ditto”? How lame, but true. This is a very good piece of work, sir.