The Airman

When the door to his Cessna

shut

          like the lid of an old dustbin,
 

          and he grabbed the slim

controls checking

                        co-ordinates,

                   and re-assuring

air traffic control
 

     with banter as worn at the trim

     on oil field veteran seats,
 

he slipped

             a fresh bottle of malt

into a rudimentary holder

fashioned from an old hanger.

The necessary paraphernalia  
           of the airborn pisshead 

doesn’t come as standard kit.

And with the rickety thrum
 
of the prop, 

creaking out 

160 horsepower of thrust fed by 
a Hydraulic Pump from
a 1957 FORD 800 tractor with 

a Sherman backhoe attachment
and a 701 front end loader,

bodged up in his workshop but
          good enough for him and

the inebriated loops of the Western Isles
 
                     he’d perform unable to stand 

            but snug as a mole in that old seat 

wobbling with every thermal

and occasionally forcing a fart 
from the Kinglike airman,
 
who’s worries were 30 gallons
of usable fuel below,  

when clearing the 4th
at Blackwater foot
 
he took
 
a final salty glug 
of Talisker 10
 
and aimed 
that scuffed old nose
 
at dark waves
suddenly made
 
black artex in the airman’s final room.