Aviation Poetry by
Patrick J Phillips
He sits there silent on the right,
As if he doesn’t care,
While on the left, I fight controls,
To keep us in the air.
I knew him not a month ago,
This man who guides my fate,
He seemed at first a gentle soul,
This brute I’ve come to hate.
When first we flew on lesson one,
He praised me on my skill,
But as we land on number ten,
I feel I’m fit to kill.
You’d think he’d understand by now,
I haven’t time to read,
The boring books are not for me,
Just watching’s all I need.
To fly is easy, so I’m told,
He just can’t see my style,
So what’s the problem landing long,
With runway’s length a mile.
My touch and goes are not so bad,
There’s nothing that I fear,
Except the times he turns and yells,
For carb heat in my ear.
And then one day he totaled up,
The hours I had flown,
And said, so calm, the time was near
,
For me to fly alone.
And then I met the beast called fear,
I knew this was no game,
My lazy ways came home to roost,
And no one could I blame.
So to the books with new resolve,
I took my muddled mind,
And after that I learned much more,
From pilots I could find.
It seemed he was a person new,
His ways were strange to see,
But now I know he was the same,
The change had come in me.
The day arrived to go aloft,
A solo was my task,
The cockpit was a lonely place,
No one was there to ask.
And now the dream to fly is real,
The right seat looks so bare,
And when I’m scared, I wish inside,
My friend was sitting there.
by Patrick J. Phillips