AIRLINER!
(Written on a flight to New Orleans, on holiday.)
Great, graceful, tremulous, expansive wing,
Making your majestic sweep to starboard,
Ailerons, like feathers, extended lazily,
Soaking up the winter sunshine, falling hazily
Upon your vivid, liveried, plumage,
Prehensile mammoth, most fearful thing,
You could be waking from a million years of sleep:
Magnificent being in you own right,
Omnipotent presence with your great might,
Vast expanse of tight stretched skin,
Iguana, basking in the sunlight,
Reflecting off the concrete runway,
That lies beneath your vast anatomy.
Loud angry, thrusting, expulsive jets,
Battle cry of rampant War Lord,
Engines, bull-gods, bellowing angrily,
You paw the ground and wait impatiently,
Listening for the crackling message,
"Alpha-Alpha Five Seven, you're clear for take-off",
Take off: Brake off: Blast off: F**k off:
Two hundred and fifty tons of matter,
Accelerating to two hundred and fifty knots,
Reaching V2, which is the point of no return,
Belching flame behind you - leave earth behind to burn,
You're anxious not to linger longer…
Whilst we clench and unclench sweaty hands,
Turn our beads and whisper prayers,
As, speed increasing, fear grows stronger.
Mass, lifting off the concrete runway,
Great Eagle wheeling over Hounslow,
Rising up above the red roofed houses,
Gravel pits and meandering river reaches,
Patchwork fields and glass-house garden centres,
Magic carpet, bearing us to our adventures:
Unfasten seatbelts, relax, unpack, sit back,
Chill out within your ample bosom,
For once, someone else is driving,
Trolly-dolly, with friendly smiling greeting,
Drinks served out, anaesthetising reason,
Fall asleep,
And dream of beach,
And copper coloured maiden.
Next poem