KBKS 3 - The Moon Is My Mistress

The moon is my mistress as she rises and sets

I dream of her nightly always at my best

I have no real reason to go

I don't know anyone there

Nor is it a great place to retire

Due to the known lack of air

But it calls to me like a siren

Now on these baby steps to get there

My time slowly ticking down

I draw sketches on my pad carefully

Unable to keep the shakes at bay anymore

I've taken a few private lessons in a Cessna 172

That combined with my aviation knowledge

Should be enough to help me do what I need to

My temporary outbuilding concealing my skunk works

Flutters at the bottoms as the desert breezes blow through

The dog keeping a watch for the occasional animal to wander in

At the center of attention is my project dujour

The Learjet in question is currently in partial disrepair

I dragged it home two weeks ago behind my pickup truck

What a sight we must have been on the county highway

Then cutting across three miles of dry lakebed

In this project I'm making liberal use of plywood and glue

Industrial strength deck screws are doing their part too

I'm not neglecting the traditional arts

I'm bending some metal and shooting rivets to make a few parts

I'm just cutting corners on a few things

The grains of sand are not forgiving

As they funnel down the hourglass

Time adding up for it all

I'm routing nitrogen lines throughout the fuselage

These I will use as primitive reaction jets

They'll stick through the fuselage at various points

I'll control them on a plywood control panel via manual flip valves

Fed from the two standard sized 3000psi tanks mounted behind the cockpit

Which rests right next to four oxygen cylinders

It looks like a spider's web on my hand drawings

The feed line coming from the cylinders to the board

Then fanning out to different places on the external skin

I've been bending tubing for two days now, but the end is in sight

I'm not bothering to seal up holes or get new gaskets

My new suit it coming by FedEx this week

It's Russian space program surplus from 1972

A marvelous piece of cold war engineering

Shiny, lightweight and just my size

Still saying "CCCP" on the breast too

This doesn't feel so mad anymore

It feels much like any job you do with a deadline

It's just that after my deadline date passes

One way or another I'll be through

Sun setting on my home encampment now

I fire up a few more halogen floor lights

Telling Dog to get me a beer just brings a crooked look

So I trudge over to the fridge and grab a couple

Throwing him a treat in the process as it's not his fault he misunderstood

I think I'll stay up on this for a few more hours

Make the most of this lovely night