The Rebirth And Triumph Of An Ace Apache Pilot Poem by John Sensele

An Apache pilot once sought for a treasure
In booze, in fun
Sampling leisure and pleasure
Until an Apache chopper gun

In his attentive ears whispered
Enjoining him to a wound-prone warfront to go
Where the gun the pilot pampered
Soon sadness and recklessness the pilot did forgo

Strafing an egregious enemy
Determined to inflict huge casualties
Until the enemy's alchemy of blasphemy
Enjoined the pilot to exploit the enemy's foibles and frailties

Inflicting huge losses on the enemy who by roadsides planted improvised explosives
To kill or maim the pilot's troopers
When the pilot engaging sibilants and plosives
Alongside paratroopers

Read a crystal ball
Hoping to glean a roadmap
To his life's call
And Wrap

Up the direction to his future
Engaging first this dame then that dame
In a complex culture
When the crystal ball requested the pilot to stake a claim

On the heart of a feminist damsel
Who the crystal warned was a tough nut to crack
Neither for hire nor for sale
In circumstances within a pesky pack

Teeming with churlish challenges
Which the pilot tackled
Unwrapping and unpacking lozenges
To his Apache chopper buckled

Somewhere in the United States of America
Where the pilot's eyes and red hair
Flew in search of Erica
With whom he played fair

All of a sudden a way crystal clear
Appeared with a miracle string
Which the brave pilot seized and bending on his knees said, ‘Erica, dear
Allow me on young finger to insert a wedding ring.'