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The venue of this military training poem is the navy's firing range at Whangaparaoa, north of Auckland, in New Zealand. The shooting range is by the sea, hence the gulls. The souvenir memories from the previous generation's campaigning are from the Second World War, where New Zealanders faced an airborne invasion by German troops on the island of Crete. The New Zealand forces were defeated, but, in defeat, inflicted such heavy losses upon the Germans that, for the remainder of the war, the Germans never again attempted a large-scale airborne invasion.
At that time, a Browning pistol would not have been standard issue for New Zealand soldiers, but some were in the arsenal of the army unit involved, which was a medical unit. A "magazine" would be, in American parlance, a "clip." "Manuka" is a shrub often found in New Zealand, which can grow to the size of a small tree. THIS IS A PISTOL is a war poem in the Genghis Lotus Poetry Collection, a selection of poems free to read online. Webmaster for this site is poet Hugh Cook, born in Britain, educated in New Zealand, and the author of, amongst other works, the fantasy series Chronicles of an Age of Darkness. |
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This is a pistol. This is the blunt end, And this is the naughty end — Which is not to be pointed at anyone But that blotched black-and-yellow trooper Storming forward with a sub-machinegun. This is a pistol, A 9 mm semi-automatic Browning pistol. You Have seen it come apart and go together: Now you Strip it. Good. This is the magazine, These are the bullets, And these the commands. And now — The guns crack: Concussion: smoke: Concussion concussion concussion: Smoke: Concussion: Smoke: Gulls scream, and the echoes Roll back from the ragged cliffs. Walking back past the white manuka, The young men relate Their fathers' and their grandfathers' stories. The child of fifteen shot face to face: "I had a wife and family to go back to." The paratrooper dead at dawn on Crete: "Gott mit uns" on his belt. |
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May be photocopied for classroom use |
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