"airports" poems
Airports are intriguing lately.
They're your refuge.
They wake when ordinary people are in a sleepy bliss.
They hold secrets.
And runaways.
And hidden doors to the unknown.
Tender kisses.
Solemn cries.
Broken hearted lovers
No chance to say goodbye.
These airports feel things only poets seem to write down.
Emotion fills the halls.
As passengers avoid the fall..
This airport seems so lonely.
Take me with you.
Let us fly.
Aug 3, 2014
Aug 3, 2014 at 6:55 PM UTC
We are watching your every move in the airports of america
like the stock market every day.
We are telling you that this is the way you should talk about
other cultures because we are the thought police.
We are telling you that we will close your fun establishments early
because we want to change the culture.
Yes folks Big Brother is watching.
We are demanding you buy into the TSA agenda of taking away your privacy at airports.
We are demanding you sacrifice freedom because 9/11 was our way of starting the New World Order
Yes folks big brother is watching your moves.
Nov 27, 2010
Nov 27, 2010 at 2:06 PM UTC
In the supermarket airport
There are arrivals every day.
The departures in your trolley
Come to you from far away.
Those brightly coloured vegetables
Have sat around for days
In what we’re told are
such hygienic backroom bays.
They’re obviously picked and packed by well paid sprites and elves!
Then magically appear on your supermarket shelves.
Here every carrot is straight and clean
And every lettuce crisply curled
Then gassed in plastic packets
That are filling up our world!
Take a glance inside your trolley
And if what I say is true
Then I guarantee the food within
Has seen more of the world than you.
Like the picture on the packet
Of your frozen ready meal
The colour of this far flown food is great
The taste experience, surreal.
Those ripe tomatoes in their reddest skins
We should dye brown, to match their taste
Those vivid orange carrots are a mystery of flavour-
What a waste!
A plate of vibrant promising hue
Can taste of packaging and glue.
The supermarket tells you you’re in clover
But its goods have all the texture of an old pullover.
Your supermarket says that it is catering for you
But if you’re honest do you really think that’s true?
If you don’t then there is something you can do.
At the supermarket airport
All the money’s in departures
So put that trolley back
And just depart.
If you're wanting to be vocal
Then shop seasonal and local
And hit these psuedo airports at their heart.
Apr 27, 2010
Apr 27, 2010 at 6:57 AM UTC
A place so permanent:
concrete, metal, glass,
immense and withstanding all.
Yet they come and go.
A place so permanent
for an action so fleeting.
May 4, 2014
May 4, 2014 at 1:28 PM UTC
christmas lights have a smell
as does freedom, hatred, and ugliness of heart
headaches have a smell, clarity has a smell
home smells like new wood and sand,
both growing up and childhood smell like smoke,
fear smells like my sister's old bathroom
sleep smells like my mom's perfume
love is warm and smells like sleep
anxiety smells like Pure Sport Old Spice deodorant,
work smells like a gym,
familiarity smells like the locker room when the trash
hasn't been taken out,
lost love smells like grass on the lakefront,
nostalgia smells like a cappucino,
comfort in isolation smells like the fur of a dog,
purpose smells like a church,
platitudes smell like mildew,
tears smell like rotten wood but joy smells like that too,
jubilation smells like a fire crackling,
discomfort smells like that attic smell
when the Halloween decorations are taken out,
new beginnings as well as things we leave behind
smell like airports and morning dew,
risk smells like a hot tub,
liberty smells like a public pool,
a broken heart smells like the mountains,
but a healed heart smells like them too.
Nov 30, 2015
Nov 30, 2015 at 11:33 PM UTC
Airports make me anxious.
There is too much going on, too many gates and times and delays and people.
They are ***** and crowded. They make me feel small and tiny, iridescent.
They are good for people-watching and spending too much on rather cheap food.
Airports make people obnoxious. People forget their manners as they scramble to the flight that they're already late for, bumping into me along the way with no apology offered.
Airports are huge, massive. Their size is daunting to me; I can so easily get lost and deviate from the path that leads me to the correct gate.
Airports are lonely. Nobody makes eye contact anymore with strangers, so I'll sit alone and read a book and maybe drink some tea or coffee, occasionally looking up to see if anyones looking at me.
Frankly, I do not enjoy airports. But I enjoy you.
So I will sit in an airport someday, sitting cross-legged and reading near a window. I will listen to some music and ponder whatever comes to mind until my flight arrives and it's time to board. I will board my plane, leaving behind the bothersome airport to come see you.
Jan 10, 2013
Jan 10, 2013 at 8:06 PM UTC
shuffling feet & carry-on suitcases
walking through countries
temporarily nameless, faceless, homeless
in the middle of nowhere
cut off from society
people who, for the time being,
don’t really belong anywhere
a mixture of nationalities & cultures
thousands of different languages,
different races,
different colors
just passing through the terminal
one country to another
some with a final destination in mind
others finding meaning in the journey itself
a lack of permanency
a lack of belonging
i must admit
there’s just something about airports
which makes me feel very much at home
Aug 24, 2015
Aug 24, 2015 at 8:12 AM UTC
Airports
I never liked them
I never liked taking my shoes off to go through security
I never liked the crowded and sometimes cold atmosphere
I felt like a toy in a factory getting ready to get boxed and shipped out
Airports
But maybe I should
Like them
I'm sitting here in this terminal watching people rush past with their briefcases and screaming children
Where are you going?
Can I come too?
Where are you rushing off to and
Must you always rush?
Someone once said to try to find the quiet in an airport
I will try to find the quiet in an airport
Maybe I'll find it, maybe I won't
But quiet in an airport
What a concept
Airports
I'll find the quiet
Airports
Maybe I will like them
Sep 22, 2014
Sep 22, 2014 at 7:53 PM UTC
in our
besieged republic
snipers are
popping up
everywhere
taking ***
shots
ending lives
with a well placed
head shot
active shooters
star in
world premier
events
jokers
rise like
dark knights
casting large
looming shadows
on real 3D cinemax
multiplexed screens
sprinkling overpriced
buckets of popcorn
with generous
dollops of blood
others
head back to
school
still ******
about missing
recess and
excessive
sentences
to detention
halls where
bullies tortured
scrawny inmates
with wedgies
and painful
***** twisters
they’ve
come back
to even the score
leaving
bullet hole
pockmarks on
Sharpie smudged
smart boards
declaring endless
summer vacations
for classrooms
of children
who don’t
give wedgies
and only dream
of soft *****
these
urban guerillas
are now working
to liberate airports
from the tyranny
of TSA agents
fulfilling
PATRIOT ACT
duties for
10 bucks
an hour
and
last night
the latest
active shooter
showed up at
the Garden
State Plaza,
-my hometown
mall of america-
mumbling about his
Grand Theft Auto
score, strung out
and crashing
from an unfilled
pharma addiction
script
he grew
up as a
Highwayman
in Teaneck
a former
classmate
working
at Nordstroms
said he was
a really good kid
he was,
one of the good ones,
he could have shot
some people
but the only
person he
shot in the head
was himself
legions of
police officers
surrounding the mall
stood down
grateful for overtime
milling about
in the flashing
red strobes
inhaling the heady
blue fumes
rising to commend
Bergen County
Blue Laws and
next Sunday’s
time and a half
active shooter
training day
Jimi Hendrix:
Machine Gun
Oakland
11/5/13
jbm
Nov 5, 2013
Nov 5, 2013 at 1:12 PM UTC
in the last year, i've conquered my fear of flying (mostly).
the people that i love all live far away.
i like to watch the people in the airports.
they are some of the most honest moments i've ever witnessed.
it's good to get away sometimes.
May 7, 2014
May 7, 2014 at 5:30 PM UTC
are you afraid of parking garages
do you think of empty parking spaces
with empty cars beside them
like your own compartmentalized mind
do the empty spaces scare you
like my own scare me
are you afraid of the dust
are you afraid of the ghosts
sitting where people once were
are you afraid of parking garages
are you afraid of the lonely silence
are you afraid of the concrete walls
that are more solid than anything
that you have ever created
are you afraid
that you'll be just as cold
just as lifeless
are you afraid of parking garages
are you afraid of where they take you
are you afraid of the airports
that you always end up in
missing those that never come back
are you afraid of parking garages
are you afraid that you'll park
and that you'll never leave
are you afraid of parking garages
are you afraid of the flickering lights
and your own shadow
bouncing in front you
are you afraid of going somewhere
and never coming home
are you afraid of your home
and when they asked you where home is
did you stutter
because you almost said someone's name
instead of a place
or is your home that parking garage
blank and grey
empty and hollow
are you afraid of parking garages
[holyoak]
Dec 8, 2014
Dec 8, 2014 at 1:26 AM UTC
The airplane
is not one of God's creatures
but it might be serving
a heavenly purpose
by making the world seem
a bit smaller
And though
it is not an actual
time machine an airplane
can take you from
a place as primitive as
prehistoric times
to another place
as advanced as
modern civilization
in a matter of hours
or even minutes
But to take an airplane
almost anywhere
you usually have to go
to an airport
where you usually
spend an hour, and often
hours and hours,
going nowhere
other than the parking lot
or the rental place or the bus
station or the taxi stand
and the check in line and
the security line and the
food line and the bathroom
line and the shuttle line
and the gate line and the line
to take your seat and the line
to take off and then the airplane
usually has to land at another
airport where, unless you
took a direct flight,
you usually have to spend
an hour, and often
hours and hours,
going nowhere
Aug 4, 2013
Aug 4, 2013 at 7:09 PM UTC
A golden thread connects us
Although it seems impossible it could be that long
It seems to stretch across continents
It joins up the water and land that lie between us
Threaded through airports and harbour walls
It effortlessly knits up plains and cities
A golden thread connects us
Although it seems impossible it could be that strong
It sketches a random pattern, known only to us
Disparate, otherwise unconnected backpages
Mississipi, Dallas, Mountain View, Santa Barbra
Stoneybatter, Skerries, Paris, Milan
A golden thread connects us
Although it seems impossible to think for how long
It stitches and gathers up time; so when you said
"It could be a thousand years or five minutes since we met"
I knew we both thought that forever is possible
That everything previous would make sense of our present
A golden thread connects us
Although it seems impossible to see how it could
From a distance I saw you go through revolving doors
The golden hair caught my eye, flowing as you walked
I was a man trapped, saved only by one fact
That a golden thread had snagged on my clothes
Feb 16, 2014
Feb 16, 2014 at 11:14 AM UTC
I arrive at the barbers
for my weekly, my usual,
and you are there,
sitting in my seat
crying. I lift you up,
cape and all,
take you round the
corner, where you tell
me you are sorry
but we have to go to
Brighton now, even
though it is 6pm on
a Friday and we won’t
be done until 2pm
tomorrow. Is it a ruse?
I think so, because
suddenly we are in a
part of London that
looks like Montmartre
(or it could be Richmond
masquerading as Venice)
and we meet a man
called Tricks who says
he’s the new chief now
because he knows the
location of all the bones.
And then there are
scanners at airports,
walk-in health centres,
families in North Carolina
with names like Kayleigh
and Shauna. And when
we are done meeting
them we are back, you
in the chair, glowing blue
under barbicide lights.
Dec 1, 2010
Dec 1, 2010 at 4:10 AM UTC
There was this kid
May 3, 2011
There once was this kid who was afraid of airports.
He had many fears, but flying was not one of them.
- Just the airports.
He tried and he tried as hard as he could to prepare for his travel experiences,
but time after time, something would go wrong.
and then one day, he missed his friends and family soooo much,
that he decided he needed to conquer the big, mean airports.
and it was with that positive thinking, that he entered, sent away his suitcase, and boarded his flight,
all with no problems at all, what-so-ever.
The kid who was once afraid of airports, did it!
He accomplished his goal and made it home with time to spare, receiving tons of warm welcomes, hugs, and kisses.
Now That, is the story I would like to be able to tell after my adventure later today, coming back home. :)
Dec 24, 2013
Dec 24, 2013 at 7:21 PM UTC
I ask that you be heard, tossed about and dreamed of.
It is your thoughts, my upset energies, and nightly turbulence.
Sleep provokes night and life and darkness prevailing in us.
When we wake up we are gone as our night precedes dawn
It is always the other way, bottom up and spaces spread.
At times we hear the police van’s shrieks, in night’s iron grill.
I ask that you be heard, tossed about and dreamed of.
It is not always the stick beating the road in rhythmic silence
And olive-green overcoat with flapped pockets and heavy boots
And six months old large-sized memories of a Himalayan home
With black-lined large dove’s eyes flitting among coal fires
Their smoke towering over the pines in snow-bound peaks.
I ask that you be heard, tossed about and dreamed of.
It is the turbulence we are speaking of, in the foggy sea we are
Or on the peaks where everything is bound in fuzzy snow
At the mountain passes where vehicles duly pass oiled by hot tea
Or in the mist-filled airports where aircrafts do not take off
Of politicians who decide mankind’s future in the apocalypse.
I ask that you be heard, tossed about and dreamed of.
It is my dreams as they were and the neighbor’s dreams
In the straw-roof, in the banyan trees with glints in their eyes
And much fine-powdered dust on their thick –coated leaves,
In lonely watchmen’s houses on the bleak stony spaces
And lonely watchmen keeping vigilant eyes on boulders
Strewn in brown spaces and scraggy bushes with strange lizards.
I ask that you be heard, tossed about and dreamed of.
It is the towering tombs and the trees that enveloped them
The children playing cricket in flying bats and stone stumps
Outside the vaults where kings and queens lay dead for ages
Their cold breath felt on the broken glass of Time’s windows.
I ask that you, I and women play a game of kabaddi in the trees
When it is still not dark enough in the minarets in the west
And children are still hitting ***** visible in the green of the trees.
Jul 15, 2010
Jul 15, 2010 at 3:33 AM UTC
When two words meet
there is a crack
running like spilt red
wine from one end of
my room to the
other
there are voices
living in it
young girls that
scream and laugh
as they fly through
the air on swings
old men that creek
when they move
and breath heavily
as if the weight
of their decades
is a physical onus
before my train leaves
I stand in the middle
of the room and spread
my arms as if they
are wings
my fingers don't touch
the plaster, which is strange,
after spending so many nights
convinced that the
parameters are closing
in on my dreams
I was brought up
to believe in last
looks and I have
grown up to believe in
railway stations and
airports
looking back it seems
cruel to be told that
your address isn't fixed
that there is no point
in learning to live with
the cracks
I leave a pink post it
over the crack
'There's no place
like home' and as
I leave to front door
unlocked, I wonder how
full the carriage will be
and if the stranger
next to me will carry
a portmanteau
Aug 6, 2013
Aug 6, 2013 at 5:40 AM UTC
*The town is empty
Everyone is gone
to meet their family
In the middle of the town,
the airports are full of people
ready to escape and fly
Yet on the other side
they land and ready for joy
As soon as they reach their destination
the town is full again
Not on the streets they are
with the family instead they pretend
In Thanksgiving they argue
and they don't comprehend
that this Thanksgiving they should
Love each other as they would
Love each other as a friend*
Nov 27, 2014
Nov 27, 2014 at 3:22 PM UTC
Think of all the kisses at airports,
Hearts rejoicing,
Tearful goodbyes,
These kisses are flavored,
Some sorrow, some joy,
But each one is savored
Sep 4, 2014
Sep 4, 2014 at 10:34 PM UTC
I like my headphones for the
Insulation. Sometimes my ears
Take in too much stray noise,
Dredge up too much disorienting
Mud from the depths of a TV
Screen or an iPod. Then I can
Always snuggle into my headphones
And be silent - and silence is a
Dear dear commodity, to be sure,
When every other scene-
Stealing, pudgy-mouthed buffoon
Has to put his ten cents in. So
Much sound should be a sin;
Background music, ambient noise,
Music for airports, and pubescent
Boys screeching from tinny silver
Speakers near the wall. I don't
Want it, not every bit, not all
The hate and the slippery tongues
That speak and salivate and don't
Say anything human. I want to reprimand,
To excommunicate them from
This Holy rite of sound. (And really,
I would be content to never hear
Music if I could block out the roundabout
Fights and the sultry nightlife descriptions
Gushing from my screen, if I could
Use my headphones to keep
That liquid crystal from pouring in
My too needfully silent ears.)
Maybe I'll follow a painter's path:
All visuals and open dripping wet
Wrath with a noisy race. I can be a
Terrifying girl. Cut off my ears and
Be deaf to the world. Wrap me in
Canvas and chase me back into the
Woods on a starry starry night.
Sep 28, 2010
Sep 28, 2010 at 5:29 PM UTC
airports remind me of you
the smell of recycled air, and sterile plastic, remind me of you
getting the window seat reminds me of you
Bon Iver as we slip into the clouds
the clouds
the ******* sky
it all reminds me of you
Oct 14, 2015
Oct 14, 2015 at 2:01 PM UTC
Darling I can’t find a word to describe you…
But I can find three
Overpriced. Airport. Coffee.
You have an inflated self ego like the over priced liquid
Airports try to pass off as coffee
The brew tastes as watered down as your originality
And honey if I’m honest
I shouldn’t even compare you to coffee
Because that might be the greatest sin of all
Jul 22, 2014
Jul 22, 2014 at 12:52 AM UTC
"Have you forgotten your ticket... or your luggage?"
Because I wish you did.
I wish we both Had forgotten everything behind, included clothes,
and this bench was a bed, a small bed, so you would have to sleep on my chest.
Tomorrow will be another day. Tomorrow will be another day without check in, without gates, without running, without reading books,
without delays, without waiting queues, without sweat, without planes landing, without the morbid wishes for a plane to crash, without escalatores everywhere, without you.
How I hate airports... How I love airports.
******* Airports... full of their welcome laughs and goodbye tears, their happy endings and melodramatics departures.
The sad concept of living it's all condensed in this place. You are never happy with what you got till you are sad for what you lost.
But I was happy with you. I was happy at the Dublin Airport.
Nov 16, 2013
Nov 16, 2013 at 11:15 AM UTC
(for children)
(1)
I heard a big word once. 'Armamentarium'.
It's a word with old parents. It means things
like medicine and how doctors feel your chest
for beats that don't quite fit. It means red
and the things inside your body that need
hands to help you. My hands help by wandering.
I tap my hands on tables, I comb my hair,
I pick up flowers, I hold up faces
of people I love when I feel blue. But my favourite
is red, because it is inside me, beating.
I learned a big word once. It was my name. I said it and it sang.
(2)
If you peel me you will find songs
as thick as grapefruit. I am red inside.
I take some time. I am always late.
I am best in the mornings but at night awake.
I'm from a place that is not as green as here.
Our grasses are yellow and say so with the wind.
My mirror is both my best friend and enemy,
sometimes a lover, often a bully, either way
hands are caught. I like to read. I read
so much that I think of my skin as grapefruit.
I don't even like to eat it. I just like the red.
(3)
Planes have mouths. They swallow people.
They fly them away. They spit me out.
Sometimes I do not know whose stomach I am in.
Inside the planes I dream of reds as dense as
roses. When the planes land I give them to
me as myself. Let me explain this better:
my accent is a grand liar because my
country is blue. It never rains there
but when it does you will find my mother's throat.
I croak with such dryness that the sounds turn to words.
(4)
When I see me I see soil. I grow roses
in my skin. People who don't look like
me first brought those kinds of flowers
to my country with ships. Kind of. We do not have
oceans. They must have walked so far for me
to speak with things they then planted. People think of me
as oceans reflecting the sky. I say I want the sunset
petalled perfectly into soil. My skin. When you see me
you must adore me because of your planting. I am not
your garden. I bloom.
(5)
When you hear words do not forget that someone
taught them to you. Maybe your mother
who read books about cats in hats to you
at airports. Maybe your father
and his stories of his childhood with feet
twisting through thin sand as roses dancing.
Where I am from we do not have soil
for those kinds of flowers. My father still grew
and my mother still grew me. Peel my skin
and you will find that sort of red beneath. If you ask me
where it came from I won't say. I will sing.
Oct 21, 2018
Oct 21, 2018 at 1:05 AM UTC