Jerome Rothenberg: Complete Airplane Poems 1980/1983/1992/1994/2008



Wing Two by Allen D'Arcangelo (1982)

AIRPLANE POEMS
1980

1
circles on the earth
– somewhere in Kansas –
what do they mean?
I take the circular form to mark
the coming of Messiah
day by day

– but not in Kansas! –

2
Farmers plow in circles

Is it true?
I can’t believe it!

From the air I honor
their circles on the earth

A poet:
the instincts of a little god

3
the earth of Kansas
is America’s
enduring work of art


AIRPLANE SONGS
1983
                                                                     (first set)
1
I am so crazy for you
Captain Star
Your talk is like my radio
you listen
badly
Walk under the lightning
Captain
& strike it
rich & crazy
This song will bring you to the top

2
He struggles with a song
he can’t dislodge
– or can he? –
“I was alive & stupid
“like your eyes
“Sweet angel
“rock my boat
“this is the long road to
“satisfaction

3
The top of the Hit Parade
once was exciting
like riding on an airplane’s back
I wish it was that exciting again
(it won’t be!)

4
The plane rocks
back & forth
& up & down
the city is a little city
– was it once big? –
& the people gone from you
Their dust is only
the edge of paradise
in back of the magellanic clouds

                                                                        (second set)

1 A HASID FROM BELZ
with whom I speak
high in the DC-10
& waiting at the door of
Men’s Room
– you from Brooklyn
– yeah
– how many Jews in San Diego
I dunno
can’t count them
lots of Jews

2
He pulls the words from me:
my grandfather
a hasid at the court in Radzymin
not Rizhyn
& he knows
the smile acknowledges the fact
– the fact is senseless –
o Belz of Kafka
Belz of Jiri Langer
golden nights

3
now the plane is over Iowa
it blurs
the oranges of California
like the stars of Belz


AIRPLANE POEMS
1992

collar into knot,
knot into back of throat
& up through eye,

by which to tie you into portions
killing what was left
& what was left of you

ATTENTION: do not move the zone
from here to there!

2
each time we strike the cloud
the cloud strikes back

we do the tumble down
& feel our stomachs sliding

softly, into our throats


O'HARE FIELD / CHICAGO
3/18/94

trucks move past planes
& planes past trucks

men stand in orange jackets
stare off into space

inside the cabin
rows of sailor hats & coats

another journey home
to san diego


ACROSS THE AISLE
Airplane Voices

1
they stopped us
irridem
in spanish
"we're not tourists:
"we're not here to get drunk"
we stayed in mexico
things happened
it was mexican territory
yours or mine

2
they speak more german than us
they speak german with everybody
he doesn't speak at all
he mixes all languages
he speaks german with the kids
so many languages
BE CAREFUL!


TRAVEL NOTES, 2008, INTO AN UNKNOWN CITY

into an unknown city where we take a bus with high sides and drive through highways suburbs & the city center in search of an elusive airport

An elusive airport – if it appears, then it does, and if it doesn’t, what is ventured? what is lost or gained?

A stranger in the seat across from me (where everyone’s a stranger) opens a box of almond sweets and keeps on eating.

The other one, who sits beside me, throws back his head and sleeps.

Everyone is old, I think, but I am older.

In my sack I carry very little – mostly words on paper, scraps of clothing.

If I were lost now I would die of hunger, die of being too much lost.

There are so many people here and everywhere – people I can’t ever know – and yet the call for brotherhood (fraternité) burns in my brain.

Is someone watching me as I watch them?

[NOTE. The preceding poems are among numerous sketches written en route or as part of the process of traveling, some of them previously published but never brought together. As with many of us there are voices and other impressions that accompany the movement through space and time, some in the air and others traveling by car or train or bus on unfamiliar paths, the start of poems that often form the basis for more developed works. For myself at least they retain a kind of dream-like quality, while maintaining a grip, however tenuous, on the shifting, phenomenal world around us. (J.R.)]