merlin: Kent 1940 ( to Yeats)

spinning in the opening sky
the merlin cannot hear
the gunfire
see the trails
the puffs of breath
as frames fall apart
and centrifuges fold --
sheer descent is stooped
upon the earth
the mere rustle
in the gorse
the streak
in the campion and thrift
and the beast slouches
bloodied up towards Gravesend
and Sittingbourne, a pulse
failing in its claws

and the singing of Merlin engines
over the fields
of new Jerusalem