How Thick Our Strata

Because friendship is laid in layers
and thickened of loves and tears.
One day, how thick will be our strata
with many memories captured between the years.

Not long from now we will awaken
and will still be but alone
we will peel back a layer of our memory
And remember the morning we lay before the dawn.

When we only lightly touched and softly spoke
And judged it was wrong but yet
We only made sweet hugs and said good bye
Adding another layer to our regret

Because friendship is laid in layers
and thickened by many years.
One day, how thick will be our strata
with many memories between other loves and tears.

DSS

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Sleep Eludes Me

Sleep,
such an elusive thing,
the body’s reprieve,
the time to regenerate.
The mind
sleeping but wide awake.
Nothing else to do
but mind wander.
No legs to move,
arms to frail
or words to speak.
So the brain is bored
and makes dreams
never written.

DSS.

No Better Than a Great Airplane

Hemingway wrote,  “You love a lot of things if you live around them, but there isn’t any woman and there isn’t any horse, nor any before nor any after, that is as lovely as a great airplane, and men who love them are faithful to them even though they leave them for others.”

London during World War II, August 1944
Collier’s Weekly article titled “London Fights the Robots”.

Regina

She was fair skinned, so responsive, and of beautiful physique. But we could only be friends. She went with a grace that seemed to float. But with one wrong move or gesture she could turn on me and insist that things weren’t right. If left alone she could right herself but she would first seem to smirk and wait for my clumsy finesse.
We would meet mostly on weekends and we would travel to where ever a tank of gas would get us in a day’s daylight. On most days it seemed we thought and acted as one but on a few the turbulence felt unnerving. But she had no fear and relied on me. She would insist that I make the decision to keep going or to turn back and abandon our plans.
She was very outgoing and became well liked where ever we traveled. When we arrived and were recognized, I was so proud to be with her. But I knew what would come. She flaunted herself and teased her admirers into touching her smooth skin as I stood with my “please do not touch” look on my face. If they only knew of the danger and destruction she was capable of they would not approach. Most times I was jealous only of their gaze.
When we would depart, my spirits would lift and I would realize why I did this. For at these times we were alone and in the clouds as one. We were not anxious to return home.
When we would get back to the hangar there was a letdown of sorts. She would be sitting quietly there, our journey complete, cockpit left with only a concoction of slight smells of av-gas, oil, cooling exhausts and human sweat, some remember all those as the smell of fear. I would walk away but only a few steps then pause… and look back. Seeing her sitting in the dark, by herself and so inanimate, made it very hard to close the hangar doors and leave her there alone.

Such is the life of John

Call her She

Spending the hours joining metal to metal.
Bending, snipping and drilling,
creating the object
that will take you to flight.
Pressing with bare hands against the resistance of each lifeless stubborn part
Trapping forever your energy into each rivet.
Soon to be used to overcome the earth’s slow relenting pull.
Bursting with your energy that will seem to give it personality and life.
Insisting that you call her She
And give Her a living name.

DSS

To A Man

I have always wanted to run after life eagerly
But at this time in my life I am at peace.
Accepting the circumstances of my chance
and the results of my best laid plans.
Plans of best intentions, done with the most skillful of execution
but ending with questionable final outcome.
Gang aft agley *
I am now more fond of watching order from chaos.
After all, the entire Universe was built from it.
Of the largest galaxy to the least of the nests of a shivering mouse.
Both occasionally going awry
And both still doing quite well.
But I, Man, doomed with the ability of foreseeing
the billiard ball’s ricochet
Doing no better

Such is the life of John

* Robert Burns, phrase “Gang aft agley” from “To a Mouse”