Monday, 7 September 2020

Tarac Ridge Poems - Of Equal Importance Nick Armbrister

 



Tarac (for Stone and Kurosawa) We busted our balls To get up there Over a kilometre high Where the warplanes live And die a violent death Meeting their end up above On towering lonely slopes As did Lt Stone and Sgt Kurosawa On the same day seventy six years ago To the day we went there As others before had For we had a job to do The missing answer to find To locate the remains of a lost pilot Named Stone from America Who flew a Curtiss P-40 Warhawk In mortal battle with his nemesis Kurosawa from Japan With his Nakajima Ki-27 Nate Both died that day February 9 1942 And both haunt those inclines One is angry and lost One found wants to go home One likes Hello Kitty But not the one you think For my drink tumbler fell And the guide missed it It stopped where Stone said And there we dug dug dug And found his airplane Or what was once his warplane In pieces that were scrap But had meaning to our group For it was this plane That brought us here Many hours of climbing Swearing and sweating To touch the clouds And be where both hit At what cost? Two planes smashed Two pilots dead The American protecting Villamor The Philippines' best pilot Who flew his biplane A Boeing Stearman On a recon mission The same type that flies today With sexy English wing walkers From Clark in Bataan The same field Kurosawa flew from Yes synchronicity is here Eagle Has Landed style What does this mean now? In 2018 right now Is it the pilots' ghosts Or God or fate or karma That brought me here To Tarac Ridge to look To try to find Stone's bones? When so many have looked And failed to find him Did we really find Lt Stone? So he's no longer MIA And captive here This beautiful mountain side Where the sky and sea become one Where Bataan and Corregidor Are visible The old battlefields Where hell occurred Where there are more MIAs From both sides Both pilots hunted here And both became the prey Paying the ultimate cost Bent metal and broken bones Telling a story Their story If you listen You will hear it...

Girl Love Stars(for Kurosawa's wife)
Beauty
Gal
Stars
Plane
Wife
Sky
Love
Mountain
Nate
Sex
Together
Apart
Wait
Soon
Separated
As one
My Hayabusa girl
Japan
Pilot
Plane
Air force
Philippines
America
War sky fight on till my end!
Hold my hand
Love my heart
Gal stars wife dear
I love you always
Always always always
Stay close
Till we meet again
Gal with the stars
Happy thoughts
Hearts day dear wife
My end darkness
Never see my star girl
Again again again
I want to go home…

Dreamstate
It was the emotions within the dream
A prisoner to the situation
Images within his sleeping mind
Never to be released to the world
Like the pilots returning home
The feelings in his head
Mixed up with facts were there
But upon waking are lost
Like both aircraft were
Along with their crews
Forgotten on the high mountain side
By all but a few
He does his best to remember
And find answers
But this is hard
So he says
Let the evidence speak for itself
And then we will have the answers
But will they be the ones we need?
If the bone he briefly held was real
Then the American pilot would no longer be MIA
And answers provided
But for one person
The answers are too late
Lt Stone’s brother died
And left this world
Wes never did know the fate of his brother
At least not in this world
Are they together now
On the other side?
I actually believe so…

Warhawk and Nate
The Warhawks took off and flew upwards
Like angry hornets looking for trouble
Covering the frail old biplane
A flying camera with brave crew
Tasked to look for enemy locations
Flying here and there warplanes they were
American flown Curtiss fighters
Guarding the Filipino crewed Stearman
On a mission of war in the second global war
The Japs were ready and scrambled planes
Nates took off and headed for battle
Each side had skilled determined pilots
Men would die today and planes be wrecked
Like something from Hollywood they clashed
Vicious little snappers reeling about the sky
Rolling turning diving climbing shooting dodging
The battle went till fuel and ammo was gone
Two planes and pilots never made it back
Both fought like demons and paid the price
Each side lost a pilot and plane
They both came to grief on the same mountain




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