A building site seemed game at first,

Any boy of ten,

Had an inquisitive thirst.

It was like a set from world war two,

Abandoned buildings,

Waiting for a support crew.

Pockered holes, dusty plumes,

Such a surreal place,

In festering rooms.

As I played war black birds started to mill,

To me they were Fokkers flying over a Berlin hill

Blinkered from danger in my inquisitive mode

Pretending I'm a sniper in a bombed-out abode

My mouth a chain-gun I fired at will,

Unaware of other winged Fokkers,

That had joined the thrill.

It was like the Battle of Britain,

The azure was a mass of black,

My imaginary gun had almost blow its stack.

Swooping and whirring in the bombsite sky

Freshly jettisoned fuel squirted right in my eye!

Momentarily blinded, it burnt like hell,

I stepped back, stumbled dropped my weapon and fell

"I've been shot!" I gasped, to my invisible troop

Blinded not with mustard gas, but by birdie poop

Medic-Medic there's a man that needs aid,

Applying a dressing to my white wound,

Blurring started to fade.

Fumes from Fokkers or was it me,

Went back to there airfields,

In the pulsating trees.

Pulled out of the ruins we moved to a healthy place,

Enjoying the freshness of air in thy face.

Year’s later warmongers will discuss my heroic fate

My name carved "In Honour", and a forgotten date.

Imagination's a vestibule of tricks at that young age

Heroes jump from the comic's printed page

Fact and fiction, past and future acts

Quad together in my mind's evolution.