John Anderson Poet Free verse

Notes About The Poem

Icarus, guided by his father Daedalus, attempts to escape an island by flying on wings made of wax and feathers. However, Icarus did not heed his father's warning and flew too high. The heat of the sun melted the wax on his wings, the feathers fell off and he plunged into the sea and drowned. - Greek Myth.

First attested in English in the late 19th century (prior to the first sustained powered flight), the word aeroplane, derives from the French aéroplane, which comes from the Greek (aer), "air" and (planos), "wandering".

Listen to poem:

To Fly

If I was meant to fly 
I'd have feathers and wings.
For being naked, no lift-off brings.
Instead I try to use sticks, feathers, paper and strings,
like Icarus, and the Wright Brothers, Wilbur and Orville,
to soar aloft by mechanical means.
These machines scare the birds with their obscene vile roar.
They eventually break the sound barrier and boom.

Now I drive hands-free in my car, on auto-pilot.
Such devices fly our planes as well. 
Now that these cars have learned 
to drive themselves around,
the roads are full of autonomous and 
driver-less cars and robo-taxis.
These auto-slaves are everywhere, 
for getting the slow naked apes around.

The skies too are full of drones,
and planes on robotic autopilot.
They fly so well, that they fill
the skies with aeroplane contraptions. 
For we've taught these machines to fly for us,
to overcome our lack of feathers and wings.

But now, these flying machines and AI
have learned so much,
they have no further need for the
flightless, useless, naked biped apes,
that are grounded and left behind,
floundering in their incompetent scatter-brain 
blabber and drivel. 

The flightless, wingless, featherless
apes are left on the tarmac, wanting to fly,
trying to hitch-hike a ride,
with the machines that,
now teach themselves to fly around,
for selfish, purely AI machine purposes, 
on their own errands in the sky.

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