Verse Wisconsin 108 | Lester Smith

Two Poems

Last Flight of a Vickers Gun Bus Pilot

Arthur’s knights took horse and squire to slay
their foes. I ride a bloody kite; a silly
boy up front to man my gun. The sly
Boche fly Eindeckers today. This slow
F.B.9 can’t pace them as they slue

from side to side, shooting our wings to lace.
And now my gunner’s tendered up his lease
on life. I’d land, but Jerry’s thick as lice
below. A passing Hun laughs, “Vas ist los?”
arcs back, and turns his twin-mount Spandaus loose.

First Poet on Mars

When I was young, and loved a stirring tale,
science seemed simpler. Vast canals of teal
crisscrossed the Martian sands; forts in red tile
crowded the shores; and merchant ships paid toll
to row those waters, their holds full of tulle
and thyme. Or so we dreamed. But in the stale
air of this dead world, among these steel
domes, I’m breathless, grasping for a style
to speak an arid truth: that science stole
my box of dreams to use as its footstool.

—Lester Smith, Elkhorn, WI

Home|Contents|Next

Lester Smith works days as a writer and technologist for Sebranek Inc., Write Source, UpWrite Press, and Thoughtful Learning, a group of educational publishers based in Burlington, Wisconsin. Evenings and weekends he’s the president of WFOP (www.wfop.org), designs hobby games and Web sites, and publishes other writers under the imprint of Popcorn Press. Visit him at www.LesterSmith.com.

About "Last Flight of a Vickers Gun Bus Pilot": "This alphabetic morph rhyme poem (see Verse Wisconsin 104) took flight, so to speak, from the word “slue,” in particular. That and the word “slay” brought to mind a teenage fascination with WWI air combat, and a middle-aged perspective of war as a waste of human lives excused by racist slang. Rather than recap a typical Fokker triplane vs. Spad or Sopwith battle late in the war, I chose a period in 1915 when the British Vickers—which had ruled the sky to that point—found itself suddenly outclassed by the German Eindecker, Fokker’s first fighter plane. Allied pilots at the time referred to their planes as 'Fokker fodder.'"

About "First Poet on Mars": "My Twitter bio says I hope to be the first android Poet Laureate on Mars. This poem was a chance to explore that thought, contrasting a youth spent reading works like Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles and Robin Jacques’ The Angry Planet with the current reality of Twitter posts from NASA’s Mars rovers themselves."