Bee One Be:
Through the fence, past the bodies,
B1;
Stiletto snout and
Buffalo loins;
Outlandish noise, attitude,
He bends the wings and pitches
Up.
Stomach resonates
With crackling air, four grey trails
Accelerating;
Potent stallion of war
By a sculptorís hand.
The Precision Teams and Solos:
Strapped in like peanuts in their shells,
The aerobats.
Athletes of the third dimension
In their thouroughbreds,
Sinewy Arabs with
Tuned props and chromed pots,
Brazen colors
Checkered against the airshow blue
Like brand new stamps,
Tumbling, rocking, overspeed dives and
Geometric turns;
Impossible dynamics,
Airside wizards with
Startling skill and
Fretless courage.
Stick-and-rudder Mozarts, all.
The Golden-Agers; Deco-Bipes, War-Horses & Skyliners:
Rows of ëThrees,
Like Abbotsford, ë86;
Perching proud on huge, fat mains,
Rotund, stalwart,
Pristine, yet work-worn.
Muscled by a thousand
Airmansí hands and feet,
Who count their affairs with her
In hours,
Boasting of their feats, and
Cursing her final dance
In a crosswind.
Jackals and Hounds; (Fighters, Bombers):
A visual bouquet,
These rows of Wrights,
Pratts and Allisons;
Olfactory bliss,
Aural Eden.
A life of fantasies
Within touching distance;
Corsairs, Mustangs,
Bearcats, Jugs,
Furys, Spitfires,
Row on row.
Billy Mitchells, ironside ëForts,
Even Lightnings, Widows stand
As in some magic taxidermy.
New as in ë43,
Lovingly bestowed again
With life, and power
To thunder on.
They glow like gems,
And smell like a banquet;
Burned oil, avgas, leather,
Sweat and zinc.
The Liners:
Massive, ponderous,
Heavy-skinned and slab-winged with
Stacks of turbo-compound mills,
Pools of scorching fluids
And sooty cowls.
But elegant, miraculous,
These sky-ships
With rows of spartan chairs on slanted floors
Which carried suits and skirts
Across our nations
In brighter sun
And ugly thunder.
Where they called
Grew towns, and cities,
Shrinking time and
Scaling mountains;
Taking captive all our skies,
The ëConnies, Sixes, Sevens,
And the Boeings, Martins, Convairs;
Dominionless diplomats,
Writing our boundaries,
Charting our world.
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