Though Mother Goose was his wingman,
His dad’s ghost always flew shotgun.
With brilliant mind and rebel heart,
He was too good for his own good.
A fearless fighter pilot, known
For his control tower fly-bys,
His reckless indiscretions could
Have tossed them both from Mirimar.
A ladies’ man by all accounts,
He seduced his teacher, Charlie.
Retting’s soulful sounds took him back
While Charlie took his breath away.
Sweaty shirtless sunkissed bodies
Spiked volleyballs into the sand.
“Great Balls of Fire” rang out from the
Piano as they fell in love.
On a routine hop, Pete lost control
Flying blind into the jet wash.
Goose yanked the ejection handle
Before they splashed into the sea.
Goose didn’t make it. Maverick was acquitted.
But his guilt, he couldn’t shake it.
So he loaded up his flight gear
Giving up his lifelong dream.
Charlie found him on a barstool.
She’d come to say her last goodbye.
When she saw how hopeless Pete was,
She had to give one more try.
He just sat there and ignored her.
She stood and left him with a sigh.
He gazed down into his shot glass
Then tossed back the rest of his drink.
A change of heart overwhelmed him.
He attended graduation
And was chosen for a mission
Without further explanation.
Bang, bang! Boom, boom! They lost, we won!
Their dogfight became a headline.
“Yo! Be my wingman!” Iceman said.
“Bullshit!” Pete grinned. “You can be mine!”
(This poem is a mashup of so many things. Firstly, one of the prompts from earlier in this marathon was to condense the plot of a book and turn it into a poem. I stretched that idea a bit by using one of my guilty pleasures and all-time favorite movies, “Top Gun.” Secondly, I challenged myself by fitting it into an actual format — even though it’s technically one that I myself created, the Stop Sign poem. A Stop Sign poem is made up of stanzas of eight lines, with each line consisting of eight syllables. The number of stanzas in the poem determines the number of ways of the Stop Sign. In the poem above, I have written a Five-Way Stop Sign poem.)