Scenario

At dawn, like jaunty Hollywood props,

planes teetered from desolate airfields

flickering in the pale Asian sun.

 

Jeeps roared out of side streets,

spun showily, and careered

towards strategic points.

 

Disguised troops from nearby barracks

captured a radio station, the gasworks,

a city bank, rail depot and Hilton.

 

At his window, a lone conspirator

clutched the curtains with trembling fingers

-- It was real then, all our whispered plans --

 

and citizens woke from unreflecting sleep

knowing only the need to emerge at,

intuitively, the precise moment.

 

     It failed in every quarter.

By evening, four right wing generals

had been rounded up, the fifth

 

crash landed and writhed on a stretcher

where a junior officer with a pistol...

 

In a coup there are no second prizes.