I don't really have a prolific output, sadly, sometimes I think it would be nice to be able to churn out work at a rate of knots.  Maybe someday.  Anyway, this also includes a very badly recorded audio version: it's bad because my microphone is interfacing rather nastily with my PC at the moment, and it's included because... well, I'm not really sure why, maybe I just like the sound of my own voice or something.





Notes on a Plane Crash

the man in the window seat



We saw the sun come up beneath our wings

and heard the mourning stars, the fading lights

that trickle gently into dark.

Our head against the window-pane

we saw those sighing lights sink down,

extinguish all their fury and their fight,

for what?  "They burn their lives away at night,"

he said, "they set themselves on fire for love

and dwindle, grey and widow-old

and trickle gently into dark."



We see the sea stretch out beneath our feet

and tread its carefree paths, the running waves

that stream from portside into night.

Our trembling wingtips dipping low

we feel the water's grave, it calls

like lonely sirens by their wave-washed hearths.

"Their only husbands are the dead," he says,

"they sing their salt-songs choked with guilt

and dwindling, grey and widow-old

they stream with sadness into night."



We will be rushing winds, be streaming skies

who tumble down to meet the arms of land,

the all-embracing arms of God.

The man in seat 11b,

his aching fingers holding tight with hope

will be at peace, to smell the ocean air,

to dance beneath the waves to no-one's tune.

His seatbelt chain will slip from 'round his waist,

and in his face they'll say they saw

a transformation of such grace:

a freedom born of loneliness,

the knowledge of new birth.





audio