Downing A Mig-23 Poem by Gert Strydom

There were Cuban enemy Mig-23 fighter jets
high over me, leaving contrails,
while they moved pass at great speed.

Still the strafing and bombing
at the Calueque dam
was too insistent clear in my mind

and I ordered one of the Unita-soldiers
accompanying me,
to shoot one of those damned things down.

The stinger missile
with flame shot away,
trailing behind the fighter and following it.


I visualized it destroying the Mig-23

and I heard the explosion
from somewhere past eyesight,
away in the seamless blue sky there was only a glittering.