The History of the Airplane / Lawrence Ferlinghetti

The History of the Airplane

And the Wright brothers said they thought they had invented
something that could make peace on earth when their wonderful
flying machine took off at Kitty Hawk into the kingdom of birds
but the parliament of birds was freaked out by this man-made bird
and fled to heaven

And then the famous Spirit of Saint Louis took off eastward and
flew across the Big Pond with Lindy at the controls in his leather
helmet and goggles hoping to sight the doves of peace but he did not
even though he circled Versailles

And then the famous Flying Clipper took off in the opposite
direction and flew across the terrific Pacific but the pacific doves
were frighted by this strange amphibious bird and hid in the orient sky

And then the famous Flying Fortress took off bristling with guns
and testosterone to make the world safe for peace and capitalism
but the birds of peace were nowhere to be found before or after Hiroshima

And so then clever men built bigger and faster flying machines and
these great man-made birds with jet plumage flew higher than any
real birds and seemed about to fly into the sun and melt their wings
and like Icarus crash to earth

And the Wright brothers were long forgotten in the high-flying
bombers that now began to visit their blessings on various Third
Worlds all the while claiming they were searching for doves of
peace

And they kept flying and flying until they flew right into the 21st
century and then one fine day a Third World struck back and
stormed the great planes and flew them straight into the beating
heart of Skyscraper America where there were no aviaries and no
parliaments of doves and in a blinding flash America became a part
of the scorched earth of the world

And a wind of ashes blows across the land
And for one long moment in eternity
There is chaos and despair

And buried loves and voices
Cries and whispers
Fill the air
Everywhere 

~~
Lawrence Ferlinghetti (1919-2021)
from Voices: Compassion Education, 2011

[Licensed under Creative Commons license BY-NC-SA 3.0 - some rights reserved]

Lawrence Ferlinghetti biography

"The History of the Airplane" read by Ferlinghetti. Courtesy Lawrence Ferlinghetti - Topic.

Penny's Poetry Blog's poem for September 11

 

The Penny Blog's poem for September 11: 

World Trade Center, by Julia Vinograd

I am an old woman in a black dress

Kneeling in the ruins, clutching my shoulders,

teeth clenched and lips drawn back in a snarl

[...]

https://gdancesbetty.blogspot.com/2022/09/world-trade-center-julie-vinograd.html

School / Winifred Welles

School

His seat was by a window. So he dreamed.
How could he study while the sunlight gleamed
In small, sweet shapes, like wild things tame enough
To dart to him and touch his hands for love?
While there were profiles carved in every cloud
To mark as grim or ludicrous or proud,
And agile shadowings to writhe and crawl
Like ghostly spiders up and down the wall,
He could not help but turn their way to look.
His eyes, that would not follow down his book
The muddy trudgings of deliberate words,
Reflected blue and silver flights of birds.
You would not think there was so much to trace
Of wonderment on just a window space.
But once, when a frail scrap of paper moon
Enchanted him from ten o'clock, till noon,
They moved him to the middle of the room.
He learned his lesson then for very gloom,
Until, came glowing to a nearby chair,
A little girl with sunset in her hair.
His soul recolored. The forlorn dreams came
To warm themselves once more at this new flame.
He pushed aside the dusty Greek. He had
A different way to read the Iliad.
While through cold ashes others groped to learn,
He lit the towers of Troy and saw them burn.

~~
Winifred Welles (1893-1939)
from The Hesitant Heart, 1919

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]

Winifred Welles biography

 "School" read by A stranger to a stranger.

The School Boy / William Blake

The School Boy

I love to rise in a summer morn, 
    When the birds sing on every tree;
The distant huntsman winds his horn,
    And the skylark sings with me:
    O what sweet company!

But to go to school in a summer morn,-
    O! It drives all joy away!
Under a cruel eye outworn,
    The little ones spend the day
    In sighing and dismay.

Ah! then at times I drooping sit,
    And spend many an anxious hour;
Nor in my book can I take delight,
    Nor sit in learning's bower,
    Worn through with dreary shower.

How can the bird that is born for joy
    Sit in a cage and sing?
How can a child, when fears annoy,
    But droop his tender wing,
    And forget his youthful spring!

O father and mother if buds are nipped,
    And blossoms blown away;
And if the tender plants are stripped
    Of their joy in the springing day,
    By sorrow and care's dismay,-

How shall the summer arise in joy,
    Or the summer fruits appear?
Or how shall we gather what griefs destroy,
    Or bless the mellowing year,
    When the blasts of winter appear?

~~
William Blake (1757-1827)
from Songs of Innocence and of Experience, 1794

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

William Blake biography

"The School Boy" read by Richard Mitchley. Courtesy Richard Mitchley - Topic.

September's featured poem

The Penny Blog's featured  poem for September 2026:

The Names, by Billy Collins

[...]

I started with A, with Ackerman, as it happened,

Then Baxter and Calabro,

Davis and Eberling, names falling into place

As droplets fell through the dark

[...]

(read by Billy Collins)

https://gdancesbetty.blogspot.com/2016/09/the-names-billy-collins.html

Penny's Top 20 / August 2026

   

Penny's Top 20

The most-visited poems on  The Penny Blog in August 2026:

  1.  Afterglow, George J. Dance

  2.  4 poems, Tom Hendricks

  3.  In Memory of a Happy Day in February, Anne Brontë 

  4.  Bus Ride on a Summer Night, George J. Dance

  5.  August, Annette Wynne

  6.  Poem for Kathy, Will Dockery

  7.  Morning of My Life, Will Dockery

  8.  On Mulberry Drive, Will Dockery

  9.  Esthetique du Mal, Wallace Stevens

10.  August, Edmund Gosse

11.  Love-in-Idleness, Jane G. Austin

12.  "The Orient, Half Morocco, 8vo", Ruth Comfort Mitchell

13.  A Summer Night, Robert Hillyer

14.  The Upstairs Room, Weldon Kees

15.  Tired of Waiting, Will Dockery

16.  At the Gates of Dawn, George J. Dance

17.  Summer, Richard Chenevix Trench

18.  In August, Ethelwyn Wetherald

19.  Silk Diamond, George Sulzbach

20. Ode to Sport, Pierre de Coubertin

Source: Blogger, "Stats" 

Summer / Richard Chenevix Trench

Thomas Sidney Cooper (1803-1902), Heat Showers in August, 1857. Wikimedia Commons.

from The Seasons

Summer

Now seems all nature to conspire,
As to dissolve the world in fire,

Which dies among its odorous sweets,
A Phoenix on its funeral pyre.

Simoom breathes hotly from the waste,
The green earth quits its green attire;

Floats o'er the plain the liquid heat,
Cheating the traveller's fond desire —

Illusion fair of lake and stream,
Receding as he draweth nigher.

Ice is more precious now than gold,
Snow more than silver men desire.

'Tis far to seek unfailing wells
For tender maid or agèd sire;

Men know the worth of water now,
And learn to prize God's blessing higher;

The shallow pools have disappeared,
Caked into iron is the mire.

Through clouds of dust the crimson sun
Glares on the earth in lurid ire;

The parchèd earth with thirsty lips
Is gasping, ready to expire.

Oh happy, who by liquid streams
In shady gardens can retire,

Where murmuring falls and whispering trees
Sweet slumber to invite conspire;

Or where he may deceive the time
With volume sage, or pensive lyre.

~~

Richard Chenevix Trench (1807-1866)
from Poems from Eastern Sources, 1842

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Richard Chenevix Trench biography

"The Seasons" by Trench, read by Sonia for LibriVox. Courtesy Rhodoclassics.

("Summer" begins at 2:51.)