Around The World In 98 Hours

Chicago:
And her wings were gleaming
With hot de-icing fluid steaming
The lavatory was serviced
I high fived the mechanic on shift
Transferring the baton my way
With not a single deferred maintenance item in the book
Everything was green
Fired up the engines
And got gone

Anchorage:
The number one engine used a bit of oil
With some coking all about the tailpipe
So I topped up the tank
Scraped off the crust
And chased down the catering truck
Before it got away
Might have hit a goose with the leading edge on final
A judicious smack with a dead blow took that dent right out
The motors started spooling
Calling me to the boarding stairs
To close the door

Hong Kong:
Blew the number seven tire on landing
I think we ran over some scrap on the runway
The airport police were all over the place
Taking pictures and racing down the concrete
Looking for more bits and pieces
They wouldn't let me near the bad tire right away
So I passed the time putting a scab patch over that goose strike
As it had somehow cracked the metal on the long flight
Probably from me hitting it with the hammer
But I'm not sorry I did it
Finally the cops got out of the way
The tire got changed
I ruined my shirt
And I was done with that island airport

Melbourne:
I had a dream about a kangaroo that bit me and gave me rabies
Such was my punishment for trying to sleep hopped up on Redbull
And I awoke just as the dream doctor who looked like Crocodile Dundee
Was giving me a shot in the stomach with a giant rusty needle
Dust was blowing everywhere as I practically fell out of the lower hatch
Startling the ground handlers
So I pretended like I'd meant to do that
Trying not to limp as I went around wiping down the landing gear
Fishing out the ladder from the aft compartment again
Checking oils
Checking the damaged wing leading edge
Being distracted by a two plane formation touch-and-go
By some RAAF F-111 Aardvarks
A sight not seen at home or anywhere else anymore
Someday the plane will break so I can spend a couple days Down Under
But not today

Lahore:
Finally found my Primaquine tablets about an hour out
Realized I should have started taking them two days ago
Took two days worth of pills to try and make up for it
Stomach felt upset as I clambered down the ladder for the ground checks
Threw up uncontrollably next to the left body gear on the ramp
Shirt so covered in sick that I took it off and threw it away
All the ramp people stared at my love handles
Two of them whistled
One offered a phone number
I think they were all joking
Had to top up the number two hydraulic system
Splashed hydraulic fluid on my chest
Which broke out into a rash almost immediately
Combining with the over one hundred degree outside temps
Making me feel like I was standing under a blowtorch
Our sealed aluminum tube of conditioned air a welcome relief

Ankara:
Took a sponge bath in the lavatory during the flight
Checking myself for mosquito bites and not finding any
But getting phantom itches just the same
Praying that all the malaria ones had been too full to bother with me
I ran into the terminal and bought two new shirts
Blue and white Ankaraspor football club
And I looked quite dashing
With green hills in the distance
Dotted with whitewashed villages
I added some quick set aerodynamic sealant
To the edges of the goose damage on that leading edge
There seemed to be cracks spreading from it
Number one engine took two gallons of oil to top up
Maybe I forgot to check it last time?
I was sad to see Turkey slip aft as we flew away

Dublin:
My game plan had been plotted out as we flew
Where I was going to speed through all my duties
Then run to the terminal for some good Irish beer
It didn't seem to work that way though
As there was some outsized cargo to load through the nose
And I had to help the loadmaster out with it
Who ships a seventy five foot box anyways?
Bastards
Number one engine took about a gallon and a half this time
Which seemed to be an improvement
The APU was leaking something down the fuselage belly in the rear
Making an awful mess out of things
Borrowed a lift from Aer Lingus
Tightened up the oil filter in and out lines
It seems nobody had safetied them and they had loosened
Suddenly it was time to go
And there sat the Pub in the terminal
Only a hundred yards away
Which might as well be a hundred leagues
I shed a tear for the lost glass of stout on the way out

Chicago:
All the way across the Atlantic
I'd watched the oil quantity in the number one engine go down steadily
From a high of almost nine gallons when we took off
To a low of two gallons as we entered the pattern for O'Hare
Where a new engine awaited our arrival
To be swapped into that number one position
Another box sat near our parking spot as well
With a section of leading edge  to replace what the goose had smashed
Those two items
Plus four other deferred avionics issues
Were going to make for a busy twelve hour turnaround time

Sixteen tires made sixteen puffs of smoke as we kissed home again
Her wings were a little dirty and scuffed
The lavatory was unspeakably foul
The ground mechanic scowled at the work to-do list
As we all got busy erasing the marks left by a long trip around the world

Break Fast

Strings of wet shredded wheat cling
To the white porcelain bowl
Forgotten in the haste to taste
All the better more sugary bits

Waiting patiently
Gripping tenaciously
Drying constantly
Scraped expectantly
Chewed tastelessly

The best parts of you
Have already sweetened my soul
Sugared the milk
Making me fatter the goal

Leftover breakfast cereal
Flies in subdued disgrace
To land awkwardly in the stainless sink
Sinking to sleep with the fishes
Because nobody wants to do the dishes

Tree Study #4

Roots tear free in unbridled glee
Dancing across the lawn
This towering one hundred foot tall
Mad Hatter crowned tangoing maple tree

That's really not what's happening at all
It is only how I'm seeing things
Viewed through my peyote gaze
Clouded with that bitter spirit quest tea

A raccoon marries a squirrel in a solemn ceremony
As I stand witness and vomit my approval
Which is perfectly normal
This isn't my first woodlands wedding you see

As usual my skin crawls off of my body
In a slung off limp exoskeletal heap
Something for biology majors to find and debate
A bit of fin grain leather stock for free

From underneath my true nature is revealed
As a coarse bark layered thing from obscurity
A little too on the nose for a costume choice
But in my addled state this is what I'd be

Size ten rooted to air Ent feet
That's what I see when I look down
With stiff limbed arms swaying to the walk
Long twig fingers fluttering like banshee bees

The Postman comes by delivering the mail
Staring steadily to keep an eye on me as he goes
This is far from the first time I've been seen marching the front yard
Covered in muddy sticks and leaves

And it likely won't be the last

Tree Study #3

Strength is all I can see when I look at you

And my hands cramp as a result

While filing the teeth of my chainsaw carefully

So I can have a go at your heroic form

Even more intimidating when I step up

Looming high overhead

A predator waiting to pounce

Your canopy shades with ill intent

Earplugs: check

Gloves: check

Safety goggles: check

Chainsaw....pull....pull....pull....pull....pull....pull....started!: check

I'd carefully make my first cut

But trees such as you

Seem to fall wherever they want

So blade flat to the ground

Motor blossoms blue smoke

Newly sharpened teeth burrow eagerly

Cutting a trench in your fiber

First through that thick outer skin

Then finding layers of rot

All that towering and scowling

Was just a pose it seems

As you were propped up by next to nothing

Your insides decayed and hollow

Still it was with sad eyes

That I followed your fall

Arcing into the clearing

To land with a thud

Cracking you open along your length

Your insides eaten by parasites

Filled with decay and excrement

Open to the gaze of the sun

There to be seen by anyone

Everyone

Rybbon

Orange fluttering rybbon
Fluttering in the breeze
Stuck and tied to anything for an reason
Not everything
But things
Reason

Rybbon streamered bicycle handles
Flying backwards in response to rapid forward motion
Pedalling like mad in a pair of worn out Keds
Shoelaces daring fate to tangle them in the chain and sprocket
As they go 'round
And 'round
Again

Rybbon marked short survey stakes
Self importantly marking property corners and utilities
Telling you where you can or cannot build or put a fence
Or where to dig to blow a water main
To dance in the geyser
Clothes optional
Naked

Rybbon wrapped present packages
First one way then twisted ninety degrees to go that
A crazy crippled cross of security
Obliviating fingertips and gay festive moods
Keeping presents a secret
Since when?
1593

Rybbon mummified trick or treaters
Shockingly safety orange and chasing Wolfman down the street
Peering out through one tiny gap in the wrap
Crying out
"I'm the MUMMY!!!"
At the top of her lungs
Alternately sprinting and staggering
Waffling in and out of character
Finally taking down that Wolfman
As if the orange rybbon wrapped She be the Wolf
And not He
Face first onto the lawn
Splat

Mark II (A Tale of Earth 52.5)

The Mark I had disappeared into the darkness

The fact of which I couldn't get out of my mind

It had been in there while I was finishing up the Mark II

Which had been about 61% complete at the time of the first test

Or so my wall flowchart told me

And I had no reason to doubt it

As there were professional algorithms involved and everything

Now floating here against my nylon straps

Sweat condenscing in tiny droplet beads

That neither ran down my skin

Or cooled me in any functional way

I could not bring myself to press the button

There in the space of my mind hung the 'Daisy'

The name I'd given the Mark I upon its completion

Writ in large white cursive upon the side of her nose

A small twenty centimeter painting of a white daisy next to it

Not a soul was in the cockpit

The pilot's seat eerily empty and wrong looking

Though the set of controls that had been in front of me

Where I sat on the chase ship almost made me feel that I was there

Almost

I've told myself since

That had I been allowed to pilot the craft personally

I would have known that something wasn't quite right

A vibration

Or a whine

Or chatter

Something would have given away its off center condition to me

I had not hesitated that day

Surrounded by a small group of fellow technicians and tracking officers

With some top brass, funding angels, and family members watching the live feed

My confident digit had flipped up the guard over the button almost jauntily

Stabbing the button in expectation of the fulfillment of years of work

The telemetry skewed radically the instant I activated the fold

Indicating.......something

I still didn't know exactly what

Though I had theories

When the high speed imagery was slowed down

There are two still frames of interest

The first

Shows a distinct wrinkle in the backbone of the small craft

Running across the span of the backbone

Just above the gravity engine compartment

The second

Gives the distinct impression of peering into a funhouse mirror

With the fore and aft ends of the ship about six meters closer together

As if someone had divided the ship into thirds

Removed the center piece

And pushed the two ends together

But with an odd warpage to the area that they were joined

A third still frame 

From immediately after that

Finishes the story for all intents and purposes

Showing the emptiness of space as far as you can see

For the record

What should have happened

Was that the entire ship should disappear

And then reappear exactly ten meters away from where it started

I had done that same experiment in the lab hundreds of times

Seven hundred and sixty two times

To be exact

Using the scaled down table top sized version of the gravity engine

Which sat in a simple titanium framework

With rubber feet

To avoid scratching expensive conference tables during presentations

Of which there had been many

Accounting for thirty two of those test runs

For paying audiences as it were

Right now it was almost the opposite situation

I was out of money

No, more than that

I was technically homeless after leveraging everything to finish the Mark II

Having been told that 

"The concept needed refinement"

Now there was no chase ship full of people

Only a small recording satellite shadowing me at 1000 credits/hr

And me

Sitting in the primer black painted "Bones"

With the obligatory chalk drawn skull and crossbones on the nose

Finger hesitant

As if it had all the money and time in the world

My brain replayed those two horrifying still frames again for me

Just because it clearly cares

I held my breath and pressed that button

Nothing changed

It didn't even appear that I had moved

Everything was still green across the board

And I was..........exactly ten meters further from the recording sat

 

An Unpleasant Patter

Footsteps upon the worn cracked linoleum

A never ending reminder that I'm not alone

For some a reassurance

For me a torturous ennui

Never getting closer

Though always threatening to

Never growing distant

Though often almost about to

I've grown to hate them

Those disembodied feet

Slapping the shitty floor

Pacing from door to door

I'd remove them from the offending body

Mount them to a plaque

To hang upon the wall near my bed

A reminder of a rare triumphant attack

But the coward always wins

Sucking all the cocky courage back in

To an empty milkshake straw sucking sound song

Letting those feet walk all over me again

The Roethke Imitation Game: Android Edition

That is less a man and more a machine,

Or clockwork, or automaton

Hydraulic actuators and complex linkage convert into four axis motion

How he could identify himself in a mirror and not short himself out with tears

Is beyond my comprehension or even his own, if limits be drawn

Or perhaps he is deeply in love with what he has become

Or rages against the loss of humanity

Or secretly tries to remove all the metal bits

Or orders even more components from obscure enhancement catalogs

Or he once decided to live forever and regrets that choice every day

A Gathering Escapement

Everything once was new
Turned brass balance pivots
Carefully wound balance springs
Pallets and escape wheels
Awaiting tiny centripetal flings

Machined edges glinting sharp as switchblades

Faces smooth as silk

Tool marks near invisible

Holding close parallel patterns

A single timing mark from a chisel

Slipped together in easy precision

Winding pinion turned

Potential energy stored

Then released in a tango of physics

A gentle advance and retreat

A back and forth

Sharp and precise infinite repeat

Time marches precisely within its metal skeleton

Attracting lint, dust, and dead skin

With the odd bit of sand working in

Lodging next to the moving bits

Doing nothing to the naked eye

But let time and ceaseless friction do their thing

And in ten years time give it another try

Where once was satin smoothness

Now is an ugly groove

Making a wobbling mockery of the balance staff

Endlessly turning in its ruby bearing

Driven by the escape wheel rocked pallet

See-sawing transfer of the winding spring power

Microscopic flecks of golden metal

Victims of this marking time machine

That slowly eats itself from the inside out

To make sure we are not late for work

Now Leaving Baltimore; Next Stop......

My forefathers brought yours here
By hook
By crook
By kidnap
By fear
And were often surprised when they didn't like it
Refusing to work or openly rose up

Who wouldn't want to be forcibly enslaved?

My great-great-grandfathers saw yours freed
Chains got shucked off
Slavery a thing of the past
And were surprised when that didn't seem to placate
An offer of a ride back to the continent that must be your home
Forty acres, a mule and the technical right to vote
None of that seemed to cut it

Is simply not being a piece of property just not enough?

My father and grandfathers put forth the Civil Rights Act
No more back of the bus
Separate drinking fountains
Burning crosses or mob lynching
But then we were all surprised when those promises
They rang a little bit hollow
Leaving at best a thin Band Aid veneer of civility
That kept peeling at the corners
Revealing an ugly wound that just wouldn't heal

Could it be that you all want life, liberty, and justice too?

Now myself and my children are at a loss as to what to do
We've declared racism to be dead
Another fabled thing of the past
Peace in our time
Sure, accomplishing that might take some work
So we'll write some words
Before playing on our Xbox and getting junk food to go
Problem solved
I saw it on CNN and FOX in simple graphic solutions
But I'm still shocked and surprised when the anger boils over

How can saying the words not make it so?