HISTORY OF THE AIRPLANE
Lawrence
Ferlinghetti
And the Wright brothers said they thought
they had invented
something that could
make peace on earth
(if the wrong
brothers didn’t get hold of it)
when their wonderful flying machine took off at Kitty
Hawk
into the kingdom of birds but the
parliament of birds was freaked out
by
this man-made bird and fled to heaven
And then the famous Spirit of Saint
Louis took off eastward and
flew across
the Big Pond with Lindy at the controls in his leather
helmet and goggles hoping to sight the
doves of peace but he did not
Even though
he circled Versailles
And then the
famous Flying Clipper took off in the opposite
direction and flew across the terrific
Pacific but the pacific doves
were
frighted by this strange amphibious bird and hid in the orient
sky
And then the famous Flying
Fortress took off bristling with guns
and testosterone to make the world safe for peace and capitalism
but the birds of peace were nowhere to be
found before or after Hiroshima
And
so then clever men built bigger and faster flying machines and
these great man-made birds with jet
plumage flew higher than any
real birds
and seemed about to fly into the sun and melt their wings
and like Icarus crash to
earth
And the Wright brothers were
long forgotten in the high-flying
bombers
that now began to visit their blessings on various Third
Worlds all the while claiming they were
searching for doves of
peace
And they kept flying and
flying until they flew right into the 21st
century and then one fine day a Third World struck back and
stormed the great planes and flew them
straight into the beating
heart of
Skyscraper America where there were no aviaries and no
parliaments of doves and in a blinding
flash America became a part
of the
scorched earth of the world
And a
wind of ashes blows across the land
And
for one long moment in eternity
There is
chaos and despair
And buried loves
and voices
Cries and
whispers
Fill the
air
Everywhere
Posted: Sun - September 1, 2002 at 06:55 PM