Fear Of Flying

[kozmikdave]

Turisti stanchi,
we boarded
a biscuit tin with wings,
jetting slowly north.

She wailed,
stiletto pitch;
her faith still in Newton;
all the way from ball to boot.
Attention seeker!
Essere in lacrime are
the same in any language.

I wanted to console her
with the theory that
air flowing over a venturi wing
creates enough upthrust
to hold up a bank.
Voila –
held aloft on a cushion of air!
Maybe not….

The hostie gave her a sedative.
It didn’t work
until we’d nearly landed.
The big guy in the seat behind –
the one with the violin –
he could have stopped her
instead of complaining
al Italia.

The sedative kicked in
just as we juddered to a halt
and taxied into Roma.

[Jester]

Dave

Strange opening line, but humourous remainder of stanza.

Kicked in here for me -

"She wailed,
stiletto pitch;
her faith still in Newton;
all the way from ball to boot" - superb!

Didn't get this -

"Viola –
held aloft on a cushion of air!
Maybe not…."

Liked -

"The big guy in the seat behind –
the one with the violin –
he could have stopped her
instead of complaining
al Italia. "

Was this real or just a bad dream?

Nice one.

Mick.

[kozmikdave]

Gidday Mick

Was real (sort of).

Guess you don't explain to aerophobes (who knows what the right word is) that the only thing holding them up is air.

Thanks for reading

Cheers
Dave

[David]

Dave,

I like the bits of Italian. They're like little interesting bits of pancetta.

Didn't understand "ball to boot", though.

Viola! Viola? Voila? I would have said so, for sure, but that violin in the next stanza (see - I can do Italian too!) is confusing me.

held aloft on a cushion of air!
Maybe not….

Definitely not. That really wouldn't help.

Good, alarming description of a fairly traumatic experience. Are you completely unaerophobic? Good for you. Wish I was.

Bravissimo.

David

[twoleftfeet]

Gidday Dave,

I particularly liked
"biscuit tin with wings" and
"enough upthrust to hold up a bank".

I'm an aerophobe myself - I'm not scared of flying, but I AM scared of
falling out of the sky in a giant fucking dart!!!!

"Ball to boot" - like David, I was confused by this.

Shoulder cushions for violins/violas aren't air filled, are they?

How about a glossary for those of us who don't speak Italian ?
(I suspect you don't, either )

Nice one, made me chuckle
Geoff

[David]

How about a glossary for those of us who don't speak Italian ?
(I suspect you don't, either)

I suspect he does, actually, Geoff. He certainly got turisti stanchi right, and that's not your average tourist phrase. (Except insofar as it means tired tourists - non e vero?)

David (not Michelangelo's)

[kozmikdave]

Gidday fellas

Yeah! I'm just an average Joe Bloggs who has travelled a tad. I refuse to reveal how I get such a fine knowledge of Italian, or any other language for that matter.

Geoff - ball to boot referred to travelling from Sicily to mainland Italy. It is the bit I find least attractive in the poem so I could make it straighter. There was also the reference to stiletto that kind of gave it an anchor.

Viola - is an exclamation - "There you are" - pronounced "wullah". Ok, the French use it, thought the Italians did too.

Reference to violin (case) is obvious if you think about what he is taking onto the plane. cf. hold up a bank.

turisti stanchi - tired tourists

Essere in lacrime - tears

Maybe I was too cryptic here. And here I was thinking I'd created a masterpiece (hahahahahaha).

Cheers
Dave

[Shepherdess]

Well ..................I found this very hard to comprehend until I read your explanation for those who know the lingo it may have made more sense. Don’t get me wrong now I can follow it I find it amusing.
Thank you
Karen

[twoleftfeet]

Dave,

wrt "ball to boot"

Don't remove "ball to boot" just because some of us didn't get it -
Mick obviously did.
My excuse is that my attention was still inside the 'plane following
the tracks of the tears (cue for a song?) and wondering about
Newton's law (P=mf) and billiard balls!

wrt "viola"

I thought of "voila", but I know you're not dyxlcxeczi -
Something along the lines of QED, perhaps?

btw I thought "turisti stanchi" meant "sweaty tourists"
Geoff

[kozmikdave]

Gidday

Isn't the rule "i" before "o" except after "v"?

Yeah, I realised I was wrong after I left this morning. A rare lucid moment!

Will fix it.

Cheers

Dave

[Jester]

I only laughed at the "ball to boot" because I remembered (somewhere in the pits of my memory) seeing a comedy sketch where a cannon ball and a welly were being dropped to disprove Newton's theory, and they dropped (by the effects artist's skill) exactly together - no air resistance on the welly! I just thought it must have been a well-known sketch. Was that it Dave, or was there something more to it?

Mick.

[kozmikdave]

Gidday Jester

Never seen the sketch, but being a maths/science teacher, I'd say for the purposes of television over a short distance, they would probably be close. Lovely image though.

Cheers
Dave

[camus]

Late to the party, the intracasies have been noted.

All I can say is fine topic, well tuned, I relate.

It's the taking off and landing that I shake at.

Nice one.

[thoke]

There isn't much left to say, but I like this poem. It's very funny - it feels like a cartoon. I especially like the line "stiletto pitch".

[minim]

biscuit tin with wings love it

I think anyone who has flown has had experience of people like this - shame the sedative didn't work straight away though !!!!!


Nice