Langston Hughes - Air Raid: Barcelona
Air Raid: Barcelona
by Langston Hughes
Black smoke of sound
Curls against the midnight sky.
Deeper than a whistle,
Louder than a cry,
Worse than a scream
Tangled in the wail
Of a nightmare dream,
The siren
Of the air raid sounds.
Flames and bombs and
Death in the ear!
The siren announces
Planes drawing near.
Down from bedrooms
Stumble women in gowns.
Men, half-dressed,
Carrying children rush down.
Up in the sky-lanes
Against the stars
A flock of death birds
Whose wings are steel bars
Fill the sky with a low dull roar
Of a plane,
two planes,
three planes,
five planes,
or more.
The anti-aircraft guns bark into space.
The searchlights make wounds
On the night's dark face.
The siren's wild cry
Like a hollow scream
Echoes out of hell in a nightmare dream.
Then the BOMBS fall!
All other noises are nothing at all
When the first BOMBS fall.
All other noises are suddenly still
When the BOMBS fall.
All other noises are deathly still
As blood spatters the wall
And the whirling sound
Of the iron star of death
Comes hurtling down.
No other noises can be heard
As a child's life goes up
In the night like a bird.
Swift pursuit planes
Dart over the town,
Steel bullets fly
Slitting the starry silk
Of the sky:
A bomber's brought down
In flames orange and blue,
And the night's all red
Like blood, too.
The last BOMB falls.
The death birds wheel East
To their lairs again
Leaving iron eggs
In the streets of Spain.
With wings like black cubes
Against the far dawn,
The stench of their passage
Remains when they're gone.
In what was a courtyard
A child weeps alone.
Men uncover bodies
From ruins of stone.
Filed under: 20th-century, United States, poetry on March 5th, 2007
I am really confused about these analysis?
can u please help
i don’t quite understand the whole poem and how some lines portray the message.
Ryan, the whole poem is about an air raid during the Spanish Civil War (in the late 1930s). Do you have specific questions about specific lines?
thanks for the reply
lines 1-2
and lines
Of a plane,
two planes,
three planes,
five planes,
or more.
why doesn’t he write four? the fourth planes?
In the first two lines, he’s describing a sound (the sound of the air raid sirens) as if it’s a something visual (smoke). He probably does this for a number of reasons. It’s surprising, because we usually don’t think of comparing sounds and sights - it makes us stop to think, as it did you, to wonder why he would do that. Think about how smoke looks when it first appears - a little wispy, maybe a little transparent even. The siren sound is like that at first. Other sounds continue; maybe you have to stop and listen for a second to make sure that you’re really hearing it. Also, smoke acts as a warning that there’s a fire somewhere. Similarly, the air raid siren warns that enemy planes are approaching, about to drop bombs - which create fires.
As far as the number of planes - my guess is for one thing he didn’t want to simply march up the numbers because that would be sort of boring. But also, when enemy planes appeared, you might see one, then two, then five, then nine, then a whole bunch. You’d soon stop counting at all. The number of planes attacking are growing faster than the narrator can count, perhaps. That’s just an interpretation. It never occurred to me to wonder why he skipped “four” before. Good eye.
i quite don’t understand the meaning of these lines
Of the sky:
A bomber’s brought down
In flames orange and blue,
And the night’s all red
Like blood, too.
The last BOMB falls.
what is he trying to say. does it show anger, frustration on behalf of other soldiers.
And also, What is the message Langston Hughes is trying to convey in overall in this poem?
i personally think that he is warning the upcoming generation with the dangers associated with war.
Also , what does he mean when he writes
The death birds wheel East
To their lairs again
Leaving iron eggs
In the streets of Spain.
With wings like black cubes
I do not completely understand these lines,
i think that he basically shows the airplanes going back and the their affects on the city.
First off, “of the sky” in the first section you mention goes with the lines before it (”slitting the starry silk of the sky”).
I think he’s largely being descriptive in the poem - obviously with the purpose of showing how terrible war is, but I’m not sure it’s necessarily directed at the “upcoming generation” any more than the current generation that is ignoring the war in Spain (as England and the United States were trying to do, refusing to see it as a precursor to a full-scale European war, which in fact it was).
I see much more sadness and terror in the poem than anger and frustration, but that’s my own interpretation.
You’re right, the second set of lines you quote depict the airplanes returning home after their bombing run is finished.
Dart over the town,
Steel bullets fly
Slitting the starry silk
Of the sky:
A bomber’s brought down
In flames orange and blue,
And the night’s all red
How is the night all red. i just understand all these lines
Are you writing a paper expositing this poem? If so, you need to slow down your reading and think about it rather than just asking someone else what it all means. I get that you are thinking about it, but your paper needs to be your own thoughts, rather than what you get from someone else.
If a bomber is shot down in “flames orange and blue,” and the red is “like blood, too” (as the next line you didn’t quote states), in what ways could the night be red? Think about the colors that would be in the sky when a plane bursts into flame. Think about the blood that is being spilled during an air raid.