Airplane Notebook

1.
Now that we’ve lost the war
We’ll have to find
It again before we
Can win
And you know
How long
That takes
And how
I’m just
So sick
Of dealing with
That
Stuff
Lately on top of the settlement.

2.
I am the stewardess
And I am withholding your oxygen

3.
A delightful part of our
Being together
Was that we were both
Trying to stand outside
Our becoming
In order to watch
How we were together
So I clearly recall
Four people talking and laughing
And talking and watching
All that unbidden, winning abstraction

4.
His tonsure emerges from his hair
As if his neck and face
Were trying hard to lay an egg

5.
Then the snakes on the plane
Kept complaining about having to buy two seats
Because their dinners had to be live
And all the baby snakes
Couldn’t keep tails to selves
Most especially the rattle tails
So the whole thing was
(as they say)
A real clustercoil
And all the while that pipeline
Kept leaking oil.