Welcome to the second poem in my Airplane poem series - poems written while traveling in airplanes. I wanted this poem to have an alternate rhyme scheme but as I was writing, I realized that finding rhymes that would sound right and make sense made the poem sound too “researched” and overly “curated”. So, instead of trying to seamlessly integrate the rhymes - or forego them altogether - I decided to emphasize them by making lists at the end of each stanza. In effect, I make the inauthentic authentic again.
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I continue to be amazed by man's feats.
Up up up in the sky, we go
as if by magic
New York to Chicago.
tragic/plastic/static
I continue to be amazed by man's feats.
Floating in the air,
only the laws of physics
keep us from despair
Limits/lyrics/civics/cynics
I continue to be amazed by man's feats.
Time compressed.
One week becomes one hour -
more or less.
Sour/flour/tower
I continue to be amazed by man's feats.
Hundreds of people
stuck in a vessel.
What rhymes with people?
Pestle/nestle/wrestle
I continue to be amazed by man's feats.
Except now he is killing himself.
His greatest strength has become his greatest weakness.
His feats turn to dust
Left behind like crusts.
Who knows what will be left?
once man has committed his greatest theft?
once birds stop building nests?
once the beating leaves our chest?
once we breathe our last breath?
What will be left?