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Aviation Poetry - A Compilation
Compiled by Morgan Jones ([email protected])
HTML Conversion by Michael Brunk ([email protected])
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Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth You have not dreamed of -- wheeled and soared and swung Back to Top
I have skimmed the ragged edge of lightning death Far above sun-glint on winded spume "War-lover", you say, "Sadist, psychotic" What could you know Back to Top
"Pulling away from the laws of nature, Reaching for newer boundaries beyond reach, Now, barefoot in the sand and gazing skyward Back to Top
I sweep the skies with fire and steel I laugh to see your tiny world Back to Top
Like eagles free from earthly bounds they fly Back to Top
The boundary lamps were yellow blurs He may have been your boy or mine, "I cannot tell you, sonny boy, Not one of whose wings are dust And of the living ... none, not one If that sleek model in your hand And suddenly the lad was gone The new NAA [National Aeronautic Association] came to life in early
1940 under the guidance of a dynamic leader named Gill Robb Wilson.
Wilson approached his job of promoting aviation with the enthusiasm
of an evangelical preacher spreading the gospel -- an analogy rendered
even more fitting by the fact that he was also an ordained minister!
Wilson came to the NAA with several years' experience as the director
of aviation for the state of New Jersey and as a past president of the
National Association of State Aviation Officials. He was the ideal
man for reorganizing the association to address the needs of general
aviation. He had previously served as the first spokesman and advisor
to the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA), and it is his
home address that appears on their incorporation papers as filed with
the state of New Jersey. To show its gratitude for his service the
AOPA gave Wilson membership number 1.
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Because I fly
I laugh more than other men Back to Top
Whenever I see them ride on high Back to Top
What am I doing, walking 'round on the ground?
I should be Fighting wind-shear
Doing lovely, smooth squeakers, Greeting sunshine out of foggy days Cruising the fields and forests Suspended over hazy blue oceans
Shooting approaches to minimums I should do justice to my brothers, Back to Top
Lord of thunderhead and sky You shared with him the Eagle's view May all assembled here tonight Back to Top
When you think of your friends who are talking of flying MACH 2 at the bar, So you grit your teeth and you bear it and dream of things that might have been, You're still half asleep in the morning at the five o'clock launch from the pad, You think of that day in Jamaica, when you landed your bird on the beach, You think of the things you've accomplished and things that might have been, Back to Top
Oh, I've slipped the surely bonds of earth Back to Top
Oh! I've slipped through the swirling clouds of dust, Back to Top
An airman is always quite free, sir. Back to Top
In Len Morgan's book "The Douglas DC-3" (Aero Publishers, Inc., 1980),
there is a page with a poem called "The Copilot". It originally
appeared in the October, 1942, issue of "The Air Line Pilot" (monthly
magazine of the Air Line Pilots Association). The poem was written in
1941 by Keith Murray, a captain with Colonial Airlines. [Preceding all
from Morgan's book.] Morgan also gives some personal history of
Murray; if you don't have access to the book, let me know and I'll send
more details (the short biographical sketch is interesting, and adds
substance to the poem itself).
I am the copilot. I sit on the right.
I make out the Flight Plan and study the weather, Pull up the gear,
I take the readings, adjust the power,
I call for my Captain and buy him cokes;
All in all I'm a general stooge,
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I know that I shall meet my fate
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From my mother's sleep I fell into the State, And I hunched in its
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For a saving grace, we didn't see our dead, Who rarely bothered coming
Seldom the ghosts came back bearing their tales Of hitting the earth,
Who had no graves but only epitaphs
That was the good war, the war we won
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Courage is the price that Life exacts
How can life grant us boon of living, compensate
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These - three airplanes, all pilots must fly Above Mother Earth, in the
The "Present" is lifted on silver wings; Its powerful engine both hums
The "Past" is logged with eager hours Between the heights and
The "Future" is clouded with Yesterday; Its fabric is cracked and stays
These - three airplanes, all pilots must fly Above Mother Earth, in the
Back to Top
I fly through oceans and waves of air,
I level my ship on a distant horizon And follow the curve of the earth
I speed along the untamed sky
I adventure to the limit of heights
I leave below all troubles and woes
I fly my craft in the boundless space
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Whose sky this is the stars can tell-
My friends must think it's very strange, To ponder on things beyond our
They seem content to dream of flight, To slumber in darkness without a
The ground is covered with twinkling things, But I must care for human
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I war lookin' up at heaven,
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One distant ray of light
The night had lost him blindly
His lust for light sent him climbing Through the trap that closed again
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On silenced wings,
Not music of air,
Memories of blue
Invisible lift
A castle empty
All time is halted
No dials to unwind;
Looking down below,
Now, ink marks the logs,
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His first love is his plane he flies day after day across God's
skys; she is his 'mistress of the blue' whom he adores as much as you.
But she is just a passing thing who does not share his wedding ring;
so do not envy her, my friend, this other love will someday end.
Your strength lies in the vows you made when you were young and
unafraid, and also in your children's charms -- from his fulfillment in
your arms.
Someday your Pilot will retire to sit with you before the fire; then
both of you can scan the skys for your young son with Pilot's eyes.
Gene was a good friend of mine back in the late 70s when I was a Navy
recruiter. He was a retired Navy Air Traffic Controller and lived in
Miami, FL and wrote numerous poems on different subjects. This one came
from his book "The Knife Is Wood."
Back to Top
Saddle up and check you rear
Back to Top
There's a feeling that takes hold of me,
I'm pushed, forcefully, into my seat,
Climbing up, I gaze out,
Five thousand feet I level out,
Upon level out, I cut the power,
Shall I recover, and zoom away?
And so it goes, in my little heaven,
As the sun sets on an ocean of silk,
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An endless icy vista of purest blue opens itself in my mind. I am called to it by tones of
frailest steel. It is the place my soul has sprung from, but may not return. My chance to
merge and become it has come and gone, passed through my clumsy grasp and left not
a stain. This mundane world, where I was born, shackles me 'til my death.
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Infinite soft whiteness rolls beneath me to meet the sun-gold pierced crystal of the
unreachable sky. This is not a place for man, man does not fly, but I am not man. Man
constrains himself to be bound to the earth, but I am not man. Man does not cloud dance,
but I am not man. Man meets death, coward or hero, shackled to the Earth, But I am not man.
Death I shall someday dance, but no shackle shall I have.
Back to Top
Lord guard and guide the men who fly Thou who dost keep with tender might Aloft in solitudes of space, Amen
INDEX
HIGH FLIGHT
by John Gillespie Magee, Jr
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds -- and done a hundred things
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft throught footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew.
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untresspassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
POSTSCRIPT FROM ONE, WHO LIKE HIS AGE, DIED YOUNG.
by Anonymous
(Found in the wreckage of a WWII Marine Corps fighter that was shot down over New Ireland)
And torn from bloody flesh of sky a thunder song.
Across the nakedness of virgin space
I've blistered my frozen hand in feathered ice
And dared angelic wrath to smash
The snarling will of my demon steed
High executioner of laws no man has made,
I've welded Samurai knights into fiery tombs
And hurled them down like the plumed Minoan
Far down the searing heights to punch
Their livid crates in the sea.
"Enemies", you say. They were not mine.
More than blood brothers, I swear,
With tawny skin and warrior eye.
Bushido-bred for hell-strife joy.
Much closer my kin, my race than those
Who cud-chew their lives can ever be.
That sick cycle of canned clichis masking
Your lust for eternity fettered to time.
Go, epigonic pygmies, make peace with hell,
Drag the myths of our ancient might
Through the miserable muck of a cringer's dream.
Who have never heard
The soaring song of the Valkyries,
Felt thunder-gods jousting with livid peaks:
You who have never dared to walk the razor
Across the zenith of your peevish soul?
UNTITLED
by Anonymous
declaring godliness in the wombed environment
neglecting the responsibilities of the one law cause
and blindly ignoring the effects, its achievements
and knowingly outgrowing all natural sources,
avoiding the responsibility of the effects
In hopes to harness all Life's forces
Ignoring the ebb and flow of the tides of the undying sea.
Transfixed upon the halo of lights that reign the night,
is this unusual creature, a unique and desperate entity."
-- HS, 1994
THE AEROPLANE
by Gordon Boshell
Written after watching Battle of Britain dogfights from the streets of London.
My highway is the cloud
I swoop, I soar, aloft I wheel
My engine laughing loud
I fight with gleaming blades the wind
That dares dispute my path
I leave the howling storm behind
I ride upon it's wrath
Your toys of ships, your cars
I rove an endless road unfurled
Where the mile stones are the stars
And far below, men wait and peer
For what my coming brings
I fill their quaking hearts with fear
For death...is in my wings
FLIGHT
by [email protected]
An soar past dainty wisps of gentle white,
In vee-formation, knitted firmly tight,
While painting silver contrails 'cross the sky.
I've oft aspired to also wing out high
In stratospheric dreamers' dreams of flight;
Amongst their vibrant mounts I would alight,
An eager eaglet out of the aerie.
Adventure beckons from drifting clouds,
But still my life is mine to contemplate;
I'll fly in freedom from the common crowds,
But earthward lies my final, sodden fate.
And yet throughout my life I'll still be awed
By those who soared and touched the face of God.
FIRST THINGS FIRST
by Gill Robb Wilson
Against the winter night
And I had checked the last ship in
And snapped the office light,
And paused a while to let the ghosts
Of bygone days and men
Roam down the skies of auld lang syne
As one will now and then ...
When fancy set me company
A red checked lad to stand
With questions gleaming in his eyes,
A model in his hand.
I could not clearly see,
But there was no mistaking how
His eyes were questing me
For answers which all sons must have
Who builds their toys in play
But pow'r them in valiant dreams
And fly them far away;
So down I sat with him beside
There in the dim lit shed
And with the ghost of better men
To check on me, I said:
The future of this art,
But one thing I can show you, lad,
An old time pilot's heart;
And you may judge what flight may give
Or hold in store for you
By knowing how true pilots feel
About the work they do;
And only he who dedicates
His life to some ideal
Becomes as one with he dreams
His future will reveal
Would call his bargain in,
Not one of us would welsh his part
To save his bloomin' skin,
Not one would wish to walk again
Unless allowed to throw
His heart into the thing he loved
And go as he would go:
Not one would change for gold or pow'r
Nor fun nor love nor fame
The part he played and price he paid
In making the good game.
Regrets the scars he bears,
The sheer uncertainty of plans,
The poverty he shares,
Remitted price for one mistake
That checks a bright career,
The shattered hopes, the scant rewards,
The future never clear:
And of the living ... none, not one
Who truly loves the sky
Would trade a hundred earth bound hours
For one that he could fly.
Which you have brought to me
Most represents the thing you love,
The thing you want to be,
Then you will fill your curly head
With knowledge, fact and lore,
For there is no short cut which leads
To aviation's door;
And only those whose zeal is proved
By patient toil and will
Shall ever have a part to play
Or have a place to fill."
On wings I could not hear,
But from afar off came his voice
In studied tones and clear,
A prophet's message simply told
For this is what he said
And why his hand will someday lead
Formations overhead,
"Who wants to fly has got to know:
Now two times two is four:
I've got to learn the first things first!"
.. I closed the hanger door.
BECAUSE I FLY
by Anonymous
I look up an see more than
they,
I know how the clouds feel,
What it's like to have the blue in
my lap,
to look down
on birds,
to feel freedom in a thing called
the stick...
who but I
can slice between God's
billowed legs,
and feel then laugh and crash
with His step
Who else has seen the
unlimbed peaks?
The rainbow's secret?
The real reason birds sing?
Because I Fly,
I envy no man on earth.
THE BOMBERS
by Sarah Churchill (daughter of Winston)
Gleaming and proud in the morning sky
Or lying awake in bed at night
I hear them pass on their outward flight
I feel the mass of metal and guns
Delicate instruments, deadweight tons
Awkward, slow, bomb racks full
Straining away from downward pull
Straining away from home and base
And try to see the pilot's face
I imagine a boy who's just left school
On whose quick-learned skill and courage cool
Depend the lives of the men in his crew
And success of the job they have to do.
And something happens to me inside
That is deeper than grief, greater than pride
And though there is nothing I can say
I always look up as they go their way
And care and pray for every one,
And steel my heart to say,
"Thy will be done"
UNTITLED
by Peter Moore ([email protected])
Vaulting cloud towers
coming to earth on the main-gear
and moonlight on calm nights
the home of my boy-hood
with rain on the windshield
the ones who first ventured
not mope around all day on the ground
like a hawk minus feathers,
lost and demented
AN AIRMAN GRACE
by Father John MacGillivary
Royal Canadian Air Force
Who place in man the will to fly
Who taught his hand speed, skill and grace
To soar beyond man's dwelling place
The right to soar, as Eagles do
The right to call the clouds his home
And grateful, through your heavens roam
And all who love the thrill of flight
Recall with twofold gratitude
Your gift of Wings, Your gift of Food
DEDICATED TO: All Helicopter Pilots Who Wish They Were Somewhere Else.
by Anonymous
And you look at the aircraft you're starting, it goes just as fast at your car.
You think of nice tight formations and Tutors in red, white and blue,
And sit there and shake as it's winding up and wonder what happened to you.
How you used to talk about air fights and you loved to roll up-side down,
And how you are sitting in some lonely field in a helicopter that's "Brown".
While the Grunt in the Scout Car beside you talks of moving the screen.
In the evening you'll heat up your supper on an Arctic stove in your tent,
And think of the bars and old 104's and wonder where they all went.
You'll do your turn in the Ops Tent and go to sleep in the muck,
And curse all the people who put you here and curse all your terrible luck.
And the coffee the cook had was lukewarm, and the breakfast was just as bad.
You take off and look down behind you and no one is airborne but you,
And nothing is moving in this early light and the sky is piercingly blue;
And the snow on the hills is so sparkling and clean as you slowly climb up the side,
You somehow start to forget all your woes and begin to enjoy the ride.
The Arctic was great with bright Northern lights, you swore you could almost reach.
You think of that night and the fire, the windstorm, lightning and rain,
How you almost crashed at the rescue site, but you know you would do it again.
Of the time that your brother was flying when you stopped to visit the farm,
And although you felt a bit guilty, there wasn't really any harm.
You weigh all the "might haves" against things you have done and all the places you've seen.
You think of the guy in the spurs and the chute and the mask that is pinching his face,
And you know that the rails are close to his sides and he barely has stretching space.
And you thing of their boasts of high flight "near to God as man can go",
As you land and stretch and slowly get out and quietly piss in the snow.
LOW FLIGHT
Dedicated to all Helicopter pilotsby Anonymous
And hovered out of ground effect on semi-rigid blades;
Earthward I've auto'ed and met the rising brush of
Non-paved terrain;
And done a thousand things you would never care to
Skidded and dropped and flared
Low in the heat soaked roar.
Confined there, I've chased the earthbound traffic
And lost the race to insignificant
Headwinds;
Forward and up a little in ground effect
I've topped the General's hedge with drooping turns
Where never Skyhawk or even Phantom flew.
Shaking and pulling collective, I've lumbered
The low untresspassed halls of victor airways,
Put out my hand and touched a tree.
LOW FLIGHT
by Anonymous
For the F4 jocks, their time is past,
yet the 'pig' did what it had to.
a few feet from the dirt,
I've flown the Phantom low enough,
to make my bottom hurt.
I've TFO'd the deserts, hills, valleys
and mountains too,
Frolicked in the trees,
where only flying squirrels flew.
Chased the frightened cows along,
disturbed the ram and ewe,
And done a hundred other things,
that you'd not care to do.
I've smacked the tiny sparrow,
bluebird, robin, all the rest,
I've ingested baby eaglets,
simply sucked them from their nest!
I've streaked through total darkness,
just the other guy and me,
And spent the night in terror of
things I could not see.
I've turned my eyes to heaven,
as I sweated through the flight,
Put out my hand and touched,
the master caution light.
UNTITLED
by Anonymous
To land with a bump or a greaser.
Any old clunk,
can land with a thump,
But pro's go for smoothie crowd pleasers
The Copilot
by Keith Murray
Submitted by Bob ([email protected])
It's up to me to be quick and bright;
I never talk back for I have regrets,
But I have to remember what the Captain forgets.
stand by to feather;
Make out the mail forms and do the reporting,
And fly the old crate while the Captain is courting.
Put on the heaters when we're in a shower;
Tell him where we are on the darkest night,
And do all the bookwork without any light.
I always laugh at his corny jokes,
And once in awhile when his landings are rusty
I always come through with, "By gosh it's gusty!"
As I sit on the right of the man I call "Scrooge"; I guess you think
that is past understanding, But maybe some day he will give me a
landing.
An Irish Airman Foresees His Death
by William Butler Yeats
Submitted by LT Chad O Dorr ([email protected])
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan's poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years behind seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.
The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner
by Randall Jarrell
Submitted by LT Chad O Dorr ([email protected])
belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life, I woke to the
black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.
The War in the Air
by Howard Nemerov
Submitted by LT Chad O Dorr ([email protected])
home to die
But simply stayed away out there
In the clean war, the war in the air.
the incompressible sea, But stayed up there in the relative wind,
Shades fading in the mind,
Where never so many spoke for never so few: _Per ardua_, said the
partisans of Mars,
_Per aspera_, to the stars.
As if there were no death, for goodness' sake, With the help of the
losers we left out there In the air, in the empty air.
COURAGE
By Amelia Earhart
Submitted by [email protected]
for granting peace.
The soul that knows it not
Knows no release from little things:
Knows not the livid loneliness of fear, Nor mountain heights
where bitter
joy can hear
The sound of wings.
For dull gray ugliness and pregnant hate
Unless we dare
The soul's dominion? Each time we make a choice, we pay
With courage to behold the resistless day,
And count it fair.
THESE - THREE AIRPLANES
By E. Rowan S. Trimble ([email protected])
mind's eye;
One is called "Present;" the second, "Past," And the third called
"Future" is the last.
and sings; It's a sturdy craft, and the boundless sky Is its native
province to discover and fly.
earthbound towers; The lights were bright and runways new
And horizons level where this craft flew.
that way;
Its gears are weak and frame unsound,
And most of its instruments are all unwound.
mind's eye;
One is called "Present;" the second, "Past," And the third called
"Future" is the last.
The Airplane Pilot
By E. Rowan S. Trimble ([email protected])
Like a captain who sails upon the sea, And ride on outstreatched,
fragile wings To the open doors of infinity.
below; I defy the grip of weight and gravity,
And challenge the weather as a friendly foe.
To the tune of a whistling wind,
Beyond the reach of hovering clouds,
Far above where birds ascend.
Where invisible streams are flowing,
Or drift along some uncharted course
When gentle breezes are blowing.
To find a safe place above it all,
And glimpse at what the Creator sees
From the other side of Heaven's wall.
And appear to observers a vanishing dot; But to those stranded on the
ground below, Up here is home to the airplane pilot.
WATCHING LIGHTS ABOVE AND BELOW
By E. Rowan S. Trimble ([email protected])
He lives out there where all is well;
I wonder about the mysterious deep, About its secrets while others
sleep.
range, But the beauty captures the inward soul And asks for answers of
life's goal.
light The only other object up here
Is a silky cloud that's floating near...
beings
And make this long and arduous flight, While others sleep in the dark
of night.
I WAR ONE ONE DAY
By E. Rowan S. Trimble ([email protected])
A-watchin' them modurn arplanes
Wit engins an' wings a-flyin'
An' sun on them thar winder panes; When I seed them planes a-soarin',
An' them thar sounds I learnt so well,
I clim a buildin' to see 'em,
So's whats a-doin' I cud tell;
Lots other foks war a-standin'
An' a-starin' thar toward th' sky, An' all 'em was awed an' peerin', A-
harkin' wit a-squented eye;
Down they cam' closter an' closter, Them engins jest roarin' a-way, A-
divin', a-turnin' they came, Roarin' right by us thar that day; Al' at
onct they be a-climin'
Ta th' clouds a-clear out uv sight; An' that fetched me back to meh
youth, At a-field whar th' Gennies'd light; I'd clim on them shakin'
ole frames An' roar down them trails uv hi-grass, A-hopin' n-prayin'
them days
They'd git offin th' ground reel fass! T'was in them times flyin'
machines Warn't 'xactly what they is right now; An' you'd havf ta
rid'em like a hoss Ta git 'em up 'n down som-how;
An' them people would star an' look, Jest like we're a-doin' right
here, An' wondur what we'd think of next, Us fools a-livin' without a-
fear...
Untitled
By R. A. Munro, C.M.
Submitted by [email protected]
Was all he asked
The pilot
Lost o'er a world of buried mountains and dead lakes
In its swirling spate of storm cloud
Like a dark nightmarish carnival
Thronging closer and closer about him
beneath him Till the clouds shed their slime of shadow And he moved
into starlit tranquillity
BROKEN WINGS
By E. Rowan S. Trimble ([email protected])
One other misses the sky
A mere guest of clouds.
Not heights for earth-bound fabric Speed the beauties home.
Spill the colors of the heart,
As whirling blades climb.
Betrayed the beautiful scene,
Like ice on the skin.
Is strange to disciplined eyes
Where wind lifts the soul.
When yesteryears seek to fly
Frames on horizons.
No beacons to flash the path.
Dreams write the future.
Thoughts capture one lasting sight
Of freedom above.
Fills wet lines on the last trip
Of the broken wings.
To a Pilot's Wife
by Gene Griener 1978
submitted by Jonathan A. Frost ([email protected])
Adrenaline Kick
by Curtis Bass ([email protected])
Take a deep breath - have no fear
Drop the top and hit the strip
Brace yourself for the ultimate trip
Once you're rolling check you back
Kick the throttle and light the stack
Drop the flaps and yank the stick
Hold on tight for the extra kick
Sit back, relax, be sure to breath
Take in the sights as the tarmac leaves
Give it a second the pull the gear in
As you reach the deck give it a spin
There are no boundaries, only the ground
Keep the nose up as the G's pound
In control of the roller coaster ride
Head up, mind clear, remember your pride
-1 June 1995
A Pilot's Dream
In memory of the author - Darren Scott Cothron, 7 April 1987
Submitted by Curtis Bass
And a chill runs down my spine.
Ecstasy fills me as I realize,
That the world, at last, is mine.
The ground becomes a blur.
Then I feel I'm floating, gliding,
As I hear my engine purr.
I can see so far below.
The earth beneath my graceful wings,
Into the wild, blue yonder I go.
Smiling, I enter the turn.
Sixty degrees of bank I hold,
As the wind whittles fierce and stern.
A pretense to enter a climb.
And suddenly I've stalled my aircraft,
She drops, as I think in my mind -
Or shall I pursue the spin?
On choosing the later, and in recovery,
I feel those welcome G's again.
For a while I continue to soar.
I can feel in my heart, I'm closer to God,
For a time there are troubles no more.
My dream will soon come to an end,
And I leave the flight-line with only one hope,
That soon, I may dream again.
Grounded
By M. A. Jones ([email protected])
Cleared
By M.A. Jones ([email protected])
LORD, GUARD AND GUIDE THE MEN WHO FLY
By Mary C.D. Hamilton
Submitted by CW2 Walker ([email protected])
Through the great spaces of the sky;
Be with them traversing the air
In darkening storms or sunshine fair.
The balanced birds in all their flight,
Thou of the tempered winds, be near,
That, having thee, they know no fear.
Uphold them with thy saving grace.
O God, protect the men who fly
Thro' lonely ways beneath the sky.