Matthew Chapman
Viewing Lounge, Barcelona Airport
It's not the science,
I could never understand that,
although I liked the metaphor
once used by a scientist who said,
Think of the sea and how a boat
floats on water,
this is reassuring
and beautiful
up to a point.
No, I like to watch
the precise point where wheel and wind
and wing combine.
I like to watch
how speed is not spent
on earth or other lumpen stuff,
but air and lift.
Watch, that is, from outside
the 'plane if possible.
Inside, I'd sit hands gripped
to armrests and eyes clenched shut,
like Brueghel's peasants (read by Auden)
turning my head away
from something inhuman,
or some action that does not seem
of man,
or, at least, of some science I could understand.
I could never understand that,
although I liked the metaphor
once used by a scientist who said,
Think of the sea and how a boat
floats on water,
this is reassuring
and beautiful
up to a point.
No, I like to watch
the precise point where wheel and wind
and wing combine.
I like to watch
how speed is not spent
on earth or other lumpen stuff,
but air and lift.
Watch, that is, from outside
the 'plane if possible.
Inside, I'd sit hands gripped
to armrests and eyes clenched shut,
like Brueghel's peasants (read by Auden)
turning my head away
from something inhuman,
or some action that does not seem
of man,
or, at least, of some science I could understand.
Matthew Chapman was born in 1971 and works as a lawyer in London. He was, for many years, a member of the Highgate Poets. His poems have been published in a number of magazines. He
likes socialism, Odysseus Elytis and The Pogues.
likes socialism, Odysseus Elytis and The Pogues.
Page(s) 45
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The