My Poem ‘Seat 32C’

Above the Atlantic Ocean beneath me,
above the world that appeared in every direction
consisted of white fluffy clouds
and a beautiful light-blue sea-
above me, below me,
as I looked out the window from my airplane seat,
I looked, my mind drifted to the horizon,
and I felt something come over me:
I felt unburdened, I felt anticipation, I felt free.

Everyone around me just sat in their seat,
reading, listening to music,
watching a film on the screen in front of them,
escaping in their own way,
and passing the time to their destination,
to our shared destination-
I just looked away from the beautiful sight outside the window
for a few minutes and simply looked up
and around me at my fellow passengers,
and I have to admit I was amused by everyone I saw
with fascination.

I was drawn to a smile by all the faces that looked back at me;
I was drawn to wonder who it was that I was sitting behind,
in front of, to the side of, and around;
I was drawn to listen to what was being said
and in what language that orignated in what country;
I was drawn to feel a shared experience, a mutual thought,
a genesis of unclouded memory,
thirty-five thousand feet off the ground.

The vast cotton-like expanse of the white clouds below
reminds me and somehow makes me think of a far-away land
completely covered in snow.

Before we all know it our time together on the plane
flashed before our eyes like a sudden burst of bright
beautiful light from the small windows,
and our 6 hour, 3000 mile journey came to an end
the moment we descended from the clouds
and landed at Newark Liberty International in New Jersey.
When it came time to disembark,
I must admit I sat there for a while longer in my seat,
watching everyone else get their belongings together,
before I too got up myself
and took everything that I had brought with me
and everything that I will take with me-
all that I saw, heard, and felt on my flight across the ocean,
from my seat, Seat 32C.

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My Poem ‘Coffee and Clouds’

On an early-morning flight-
just as the sun rises in the sky
and brings alive the clouds
like a wave of fire frozen in time,
like a magical world being expressed
by someone’s incredible and inspired imagination-
a man looks out his window
and simply cannot believe what he is seeing.
He cannot think, he cannot move,
he just knows that he is here for a reason.
He is sitting in his chair on a plane flying 500mph,
in the atmosphere of a planet spinning 1000mph,
with a heart in his chest beating like an unrested drum.
The man isn’t going far,
but to him every flight is like a trip to the moon.
Even as he watches the electric blue
and serene open air above the clouds,
the man swears for a moment
that he sees shooting-stars descend and streak
from above to below in short sucession-
not a trick of the light,
or momentary bursts from the sun-
actual asteroids and meteors from another world
choosing now to reign down from the heavens,
to fall into view and end their billion-year journey
right in front of him.

As the man takes a sip of hot coffee
he wonders for a second how the cup came into his hand,
who handed it to him, how unearthly and incredible the coffee tastes,
if he looked away from the window,
because he doesn’t remember when or for how long.
As the hot coffee rests in his mouth for a second
and then rushes down his throat,
the view outside the window, outside the plane,
intensifies within the blink of an eye,
and the man feels like the plane and his fellow passengers
are suddenly flying on the airplanes wings-
fixed in position, but able to be swept on their journey
by the breeze on their face and through their hair,
and by the feeling of unbelievable freedom.
It isn’t until the plane hits a slight patch of turbulence
that the man regains his faculties and his focus
and remembers where he is.

The air is different up here.
Everything you feel, think, and experience,
while free of gravity, goes straight to your head,
in ways only an astronaut could reciprocate,
or someone who finds love and happiness
for the first time in their life.

The man sleeps.
While still believing he is still awake,
while believing that he has been awake for the entire flight,
forgetting the brief conversation that he had with a passenger
who mistook him for a celebrity
while making their way back from the bathroom.
The man wakes.
The man feels more refreshed than he has done in years.
The man feels like he has been looking out the window
for what seemed like seconds,
before the announcement rang-out
and the “fasten your seat-belts” sign became illuminated
indicating that he and the plane were descending to there destination.

What does it all mean? The man asked himself,
as they passed though the clouds.
Everything means something, he repeated to himself,
from the stirred coffee in your cup that swirls
and resembles the spiral of a galaxy,
to the beautiful shapes and colours that you discover
while you’re among the clouds.

My Poem ‘Snowman’s Paradise’

Snowflakes swirl, fly, and dance, in the air,
as they slowly descend to the already white-covered floor-
billions of intricate and perfect frozen tears
dusting and blanketing the world before me.
It is like standing in the middle of a snowglobe.
No one can see anything in front of them,
everyone just jeeps going as best, as fast,
and as caustiously, as they can-
not letting the weather keep them in one place,
not even this unrelenting snowfall.

Seeing familiar landmarks veiled below frozen fields
that makes everything look indistinguishable from everything else,
a new world reveals itself, a new light shines, a new beauty arises,
the sky becomes the Earth, the Earth becomes the sky;
the sun is obscurred from view, all is bright,
and suddenly every-day things that you may sometimes miss
start to catch your eye.

A red british postbox has never looked more amazing
and glowing than against a white back-drop;
roads and motorways have never seemed more ghostly,
nor more other-worldly, than when you drive down them
in the middle of a blizzard,
when you are relying on the lights of the vehicles
in front of you to save you from coming to a sudden,
immediate, and perhaps costly stop.

Walking on what you cannot see,
walking on something that you have to constantly reteach yourself
how to walk on with every step,
makes you think more about your surroundings,
forces you to not take anything for granted,
and to expect the unexpected-
it doesn’t take much to take a false step in the snow below
and seconds later to find yourself in a skid.

In this weather you need to wrap-up warm, keep on the move,
stay dry, make the most of every shelter and cover that you come across,
don’t rush to wherever you are going, give yourself time, stay inside-
the snow can seem like a disruption if you have got somewhere to go;
but you cannot not appreciate its beauty, its magic,
its gift of contemplation-
nothing else opens your eyes to the world more wide.

Looking at the world, staring at the white cloud-covered sky,
at the snow-carpeted ground, and at the bare branches of the trees,
while wearing the biggest and the warmest coat that I could find
to protect me from the cold and the ice-
I look at where I am standing,
I look at the landscape that nature is remaking,
and I smile to myself at the thought that, as things stand right now,
this must be the most perfect winter wonderland that I have ever seen,
and it would be the most sublime snowman’s paradise.

My Poem ‘Jersey’

I am really going to miss this place.
This island has been my home for almost a week,
but now it is time for me to leave,
now it is time for me to return to England
with renewed inspiration, and new questions and new truths,
that I now cherish and seek.

Walking on the beach for the last time this morning,
I felt so sad to say goodbye to the sea, the sand, the air,
and to the beautiful sunlight and perfect sky
that greeted me at every dawning.

I have made so many amazing, wonderful, and incredible memories
since I first arrived here, unpacked my case,
through my bag over my shoulder, and set-out to explore-
everyday the wonders of this beautiful island
have awoken me with peace and tranquility,
and has seen me fall asleep with memories
and recollections of the day before
that took me to sleep feeling more alive than ever,
feeling more inspired than ever,
feeling more hope than ever before,
and spellbound with awe.

Leaving Jersey, watching the ground disappear below my feet,
rising into the clouds, into the evening sun-
unable to move, completely stuck to my seat.
The feeling of take-off,
I can only describe as like feeling the wonder and the magic
that you feel when you are a child-
when the world seems infinite, incredible, indescribable, and wild.
Watching the island disappear behind me,
I feel so sad to leave it;
but knowing what effect it has had on me,
makes me feel like a newly-inspired, enlivened, and brand new poet.

Seeing the coast of Great Britain again,
seeing my country, the island of my birth from the air,
fills my heart like an intake of breath,
makes me feel light-headed, glad to be home, as if I hadn’t left.

Landing on home-soil, through the golden haze of dusk,
time feels as if it has frozen before me,
and I have to question which senses that I should trust.

Taking my first step back in England,
looking up at the blue, red, and golden clouded sky,
I attempt to describe the beauty that I am seeing in my mind,
but the words that I find fail me at every try.

Returning home, everything seems different
and yet the same- just like me.
I want to go back soon;
but for now, my dreams will be enough
to return me every night
to the place that has me under its spell:
the beautiful island of Jersey.

My Poem ‘Fly to Be’

From the ground the sky looks limitless;
from the sky, through the clouds, to the fields,
to the roads, to the people and the communities that I see-
everything and everyone looks like one, feels like one,
like the most resplendent and serene beauty.

Taking off into the vast blue and white
feels like ascending into another dimension of dark blue
between darkness and light-
the feeling in your stomach feels amazing, and unlike anything else-
your mind feels open with awe, like you have never felt.

Flying above the world below feels so natural,
as if we were all meant to always be among the clouds-
up here you feel so free of troubles, worries,
the future, the present, the past;
being up here never fails to astound.

Flying above the bright blue sea-
the wonder of what I am doing, what we are all doing,
every minute of every day overcomes me-
I feel more than I am, I feel more than I was,
I feel as I imagine an astronaut does
orbiting through space above the Earth-
like a baby in a mothers womb before birth.

Returning to land,
setting foot on the soft warm sand,
I feel like I have returned from a magical dream,
from somewhere, and to somewhere, I have never been-
changed, but still the same:
one of the magical gifts that you receive from flying on a plane.

You feel like you are a child all over again:
experiencing the thrill of take-off, flight, freedom-
like seeing a painting expand beyond the borders of a frame.

When we fly, by any means, we become like a bird in our mind,
in which all the destinations that we travel to
are like the branches of a tree,
and the more places that we go,
the more that we want to fly to truly be.