Post by oldpoet on Jun 29, 2008 20:23:19 GMT -8
Poetry and photography are my passions. I'm an old guy who can still focus and write. I spent 23 years of another life as a Naval Aviator and this is one of my very first poems:
Night Launch
At sea the moonless, mantled night
is blacker than a hundred midnights
deep in the maw of a cypress swamp
and the aircraft carrier's deck lights
are hooded and dimly impotent.
Sixty feet above the sea's foaming curl
sleek swept-winged birds are unchained
from the slippery gray steel flight deck.
The sound of hot, howling engines
scream their power to sustain flight.
The inky blackness is punctuated
by director's glowing amber wands,
like syncopated fireflies
beaconing signals by practiced hands,
guiding blind craft to the catapult.
The movement is a symphony
of frantic, chaotic precision
that reaches a shuddering crescendo
with each taut, measured decision
to unleash the catapult's awesome might.
Each cockpit is an instrumented
womb of pale red profusion,
eerily silhouetting mask and helmet
donned by young lions--their calm tension
mounting as the critical moment nears.
First a red wand circles, stabs the gloom,
urging throttles forward to ignite
twin afterburner tongues of flame
searing the fragile veil of the night.
The tethered bird shrieks and strains to soar.
Then the green wand--all is right--
signals in a graceful, swinging arc.
powerful scalding, steam is unleashed
to hurl the bird into the milky dark,
jolting the pilot with blurring force.
And the loud, sweaty ballet goes on
as each winged chariot, one by one,
is given the wrenching gift of flight,
until the last is away and gone,
engines' thunder fading in the night.
Night Launch
At sea the moonless, mantled night
is blacker than a hundred midnights
deep in the maw of a cypress swamp
and the aircraft carrier's deck lights
are hooded and dimly impotent.
Sixty feet above the sea's foaming curl
sleek swept-winged birds are unchained
from the slippery gray steel flight deck.
The sound of hot, howling engines
scream their power to sustain flight.
The inky blackness is punctuated
by director's glowing amber wands,
like syncopated fireflies
beaconing signals by practiced hands,
guiding blind craft to the catapult.
The movement is a symphony
of frantic, chaotic precision
that reaches a shuddering crescendo
with each taut, measured decision
to unleash the catapult's awesome might.
Each cockpit is an instrumented
womb of pale red profusion,
eerily silhouetting mask and helmet
donned by young lions--their calm tension
mounting as the critical moment nears.
First a red wand circles, stabs the gloom,
urging throttles forward to ignite
twin afterburner tongues of flame
searing the fragile veil of the night.
The tethered bird shrieks and strains to soar.
Then the green wand--all is right--
signals in a graceful, swinging arc.
powerful scalding, steam is unleashed
to hurl the bird into the milky dark,
jolting the pilot with blurring force.
And the loud, sweaty ballet goes on
as each winged chariot, one by one,
is given the wrenching gift of flight,
until the last is away and gone,
engines' thunder fading in the night.
