Poems about aeroplanes

Like blood

Nightbirds

as it flies
flexing in air
out to the wingtips
moving the flaps
and back
out to all the lights
blinking and back
in the pilot's egg
of the blunt nose
guidance radio radar
through the length of it
as it flies
all around
the warm drowsy
hatchery of passengers
through kilometres of wires
circuits and circles
lungs kidneys bladder
as it flies
flexing in air
electricity
flows through it
like blood

Something about it

something about the way it glides
over the beer garden of the corner pub
and the long sleek white belly
is plumb to heaven
and you could almost reach up
with a long handled broom
and stroke it as it passed
something about the way
it floats down its final approach
wingtips trembling and tilting
like a real bird
something in the muscular
thickness of wings and body
the windows at the front
the yelp of its landing
makes me want to sneak on board
when everyone has left
walk up the narrow aisle
of the dim cabin
and squeeze the seats

Tricks

have you ever seen them
stalking an airport
on a damp grey afternoon
fluffy white scarves
trailing off their wings
that's one of their
better tricks
the full repertoire
is stunning of course
loop the loop
break the sound barrier
and just staying up's
a pretty good act
when you consider
the wings don't flap
and you can't see
too many moving parts
all the air's their catwalk
and they surge through it
as arrogant as super-models
their inner fire
their cold outer shell

What

when we go somewhere
in an aeroplane
first we have to walk down
a long rectangular corridor
black rubber mat
blue textured cloth on the walls
photos of sporting heroes
we come to a doorway
where people in uniforms
stand and smile at us
we go into something
like a big long cinema
with little windows
so we can see the screen
which is all around us
they show a documentary
Clouds and Landscape
and make lots of roaring
and thumping sounds
they serve us food tea coffee etc.
after an hour or so 
we all get up and leave
people in uniforms
stand at the door and smile at us
we walk down a long
rectangular corridor
photos of sporting heroes
blue textured cloth on the walls
black rubber mat

what are we being prepared for

The people up the front

there are some people
sitting right up the front
in blue and gold coats
as we speak they're
looking out the window
checking the stars
checking the gauges
it'll all work out
they're constantly training
and they put every new crash
in the simulators to make sure
it will never happen again

calm down mate
stop pacing the aisle
you're scaring the passengers
sit in your seat
watch the movie
eat your stalks
pick your fleas

don't panic gorilla
the people up the front
know exactly where we're going
and how to get us there

Nightmare

the plane landed
and I was in it
the thrust
roared and roared
and the big room
slowed to the bus speed
where we all think
we're safe now
but then a tyre blew
and the plane span around
tilted tail first
into a canal
beside the runway
and started to sink at 45
us going down
with our backs to hell
it sank as calm
as a ghost might
the damned canal
deep at this point
and I thought - ah no
we're all goners -
as it kept slipping
centimetre by centimetre
into the old canal
the green scummed canal
so shoulder shoved me
against them all
in the wet dark
rat-ran me
the black aisle up
to save me
to save me

Flying home on Virgin Blue

you walk to the plane
across the asphalt
open air like Casablanca
the engines are idling
the fans spinning
slowly in their cowls
as you climb up
the stair ramp and step inside
if it should be raining
that much the better
like an old movie

you'll turn back and wave
once
quick
to the woman
wispy hair   damp coat
hand squeeze
Safe travel  she'd said

so when you sit
cramped and numb
and still steamy
from the rain
and the bright attendants
have packed and closed
and it's rolling down
to clearance
and the captain's telling it
you know that everything
really will be alright

it's a big dipper
with wings
happy screaming faces
waving arms
going up and over
and rushing down
a huge rainbow
of BNE to SYD

they'll get you home

they do this every day

What aeroplanes do to air

they bully their way
around the air
they suck it in and blow it out
like body builders
with big Mr Universe muscles
on their wings
they use the air like bastards
and the silly air keeps them up
groaning and crying and whingeing
some excuse about a vacuum
on the upper curve of the wing
but it's only got itself to blame
and secretly it throbs that
24 - 365
they're sliding in

Metal wind

not long now before
the planes will ditch
that embarrassing
old fashioned
charging bull thing
they do down the tarmac
to get airborne
and they'll learn to rise
in a more evolved
almost seraphic manner
after everyone's on board
they'll pull back
from the loading tube
and levitate
balloon Buddha
Grand Master
then they'll fold up
their landing legs
glide through the heat haze
in an out of body kind of way
queue quietly
breathe in slowly
breathe out slowly
suck velocity
from the very air
swindle gravity
become metal wind

I often go out
and watch them
fly over my house
to the airport
as if they're coming home
tight wires
of electric instinct
winch them in
their big lights blare
and the suburb
hums beneath them
like a tuning fork
maybe one or two
will stop for an hour
before New Zealand
but most of them
bed down and huddle
in a white flock
against the dark and cold
they switch off and go quiet
their feet get chocked
they sink into their springs
a slow night mist
forms a wet sheen
all over their tails
their long bodies
their wings
their engine pods

Concorde

announcing the gift of itself
with the howl of a thousand crows
and no thought of pardon please may I
to my front yard sky or the banana trees
struggling by the side fence
a Concorde flew over the other day
an intergalactic movie just for me
at the time it seemed
hard to believe anything
so huge could move that slowly
and yet stay up
and I imagined all sorts
of impossibly cumbersome things
lumbering through the air over
Annandale NSW
the rattling centipede
of a Northern Territory cattle train
an oil tanker dripping tears of ocean
onto road sand roof tiles
or a winged Clydesdale
pulling a trotting harness
with a whip-chick Qantas blonde in it
but oh those wings triangular
that set to peck angle
that penetrant beak

It's all in the numbers

of simple and complex
arithmetic on bits of paper
pencil doodling
computer printouts
3-4-5 triangles
pi catenary curves
fractions and percentages
and then fingers and metal
are important of course
and plastic and rubber
and carpets and paint
and welders and saws
and rivet guns
and knees and shoulders
and greasy blue overalls
and a third hand
never go astray
when making anything
but get it right    cut square
by the plan with the rivets
5cm apart not 6cm
and the curves just so
not close but spot on
to the printed doodle

that's what the plane is
it's all those numbers
on bits of paper

Bring on the clouds

we're all sitting there
bolt upright
we've done the seatbelt
stowed everything away
watched the safety show
yellow oxygen cones
Marcel Marceau
then the buffeting run
we're all in it
like a Flintstones bus
legs through the floor
grinning to each other
this is what we paid for
arms pumping at the big
strapped on wings
run pump run pump run pump
it's lifting
it's lifting
that big backward tilt
and bring on the clouds

grand final high
we turn to each other
fists in the air  winking
long sighs  palm slaps
we pull our legs up
tuck them under the seats
grown men crying
we shake our arms loose
and let the crew take over

On the wing

a clear sign black paint
neat Helvetica style letters
Do not stand in this area
and at this height no-one is
but the lack of hand-hold
on the silver plumage
bothers me a lot
for if by foul chance
you should find yourself
alone out there
your only hope would be
to push your arms
over the thick curve
of the leading edge
and hang on for grim
this particular plane
has a little raised bump
at the far edge of the wing
but it's just the promise of a hand-hold
and the short aerial poking
out of it would snap
if you grabbed it

anyway handrails
footrests and safety straps
combined wouldn't help you
we're as high as Everest
you'd freeze out there
be clink-clinka
by the time we landed

better to have slippery-dipped
down the wing at take-off
and burst your bum on the tarmac
damaged goods
but still alive

Nostalgia

I read somewhere
that when the clocks
tick over to 2000
you shouldn't be flying
in an aeroplane
it could be a case of
four . . . three . . . two . . . one
downski
I've also read
there isn't enough
parking space at the airports
for all the aeroplanes
so some of them
will have to be
in the air that night
the earlier models of course
rattling rivets  flaking paint
seating and fixtures removed
in the Langsyne darkness
with the navy watching
they'll circle off shore
the oldest planes
the oldest pilots
four . . . three . . .  two

Down safe

she'll feel the downing
begin a half hour out
she'll feel the engines
working less  feel the plane
make friends with gravity
she'll see a familiar
bit of coast   a bend of river
then the seat belt lights
will make their little pings
and Captain Rumblevoice
will promise to have her
on the ground in Adelaide
at seven twenty-three
she'll sink into her seat
watch roads and buildings
known from childhood
then the new freeway
lots of grass
the black of the runway
the thuddy thud thud
the wind breaks howling
no skating or sliding
but a perfect straight run
and suddenly she's in a huge
warm bus rolling
eggshell safe
to the terminal

a few minutes later
with her matted hair
daggy green jumper
and that infernal backpack
she'll walk smiling
from the long quiet
birth canal of gate 15
and fall into
that old automatic
welcoming hug
she does with him

Pods

they don't
hang off the plane
so much as the plane
sits on them
but can you imagine
those hot little pods
with a life of their own
wouldn't it be
hotter still if
after the hard yards
of take off
during the bullet climb
they slunk up and back
maybe a bit to the side
tucked themselves
under the wing
made the plane
look like a real
bird all thrusty
and puffing its chest