Category: Auto-biographical
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Liar’s Poker
Liar’s Poker I went for a walk this morning. Through the fields, across the still dew on wild grasses, I stepped out lustily, my heart singing an old Irish ballad. Carefully, I stepped around the dandelions and the daisies, the forget-me-nots and the rag weeds. I clambered over a few old fences, and around the…
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The Blade of Damocles
The Blade of Damocles Underneath a blade Paused, unnaturally, from beating air into a mostly illusory submission, I gaze in rapture At a thin gaseous layer With which our home Fragile and small Is blessed by Forces slightly understood And by a Great Cosmic Kindness Whom we, noisy and unseeing Barely acknowledge. I watch as…
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A Blip on the Radar (Part 33) Fly Quietly, for our Friends lie there
A Blip on the Radar Part 33: Fly quietly, for our Friends lie there Truth, many say, is stranger than fiction. For sure. I wholly concur. As an obsessive scribbler, I seldom worry about inventing a plot. I just try and describe what I see and feel. But I would add this: Looking back on…
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A Blip on the Radar (Part 32) “An Unusual Passenger “
A Blip on the Radar Part 32: An Unusual Passenger I am indebted for a description of what happened on this particular night, to a friend of mine, a long time Hansen Pilot. It is through his patient description, the next day (when I had sobered up a bit) that most of my memory exists.…
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A Blip on the Radar (Part 31) ” A Strange Premonition “
Photo: K.Mark Demon A Blip on the Radar Part 31: A Strange Premonition Let’s be honest: we tend to refrain from writing about fellow pilots who… die. It makes us uncomfortable. There is also the fear that we may come across as judgmental, or unkind, insensitive, arrogantly superior, gushingly sentimental or downright maudlin. It’s easier…
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A Blip on the Radar (Part 30) The Grease Monkey
A Blip on the Radar Part 30: The Grease Monkey A tale of a Grease Monkey, a drive shaft, and a gibbering idiot For most of my aviation career, I have been a dual rated fixed wing and helicopter commercial pilot. But I do hold an A+P license, obtained via a tortuous thirteen month full…
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He and I
Oh, how capricious God must be To have made a creature such as me Did he blunder, did he err? Or did he shape this man with care? Could I have been brought forth in jest? Or did he really do his best? I am imperfect this I know But who was it that made…
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Riding high in an icy sky
A Blip in the Gulf (1) Riding high in an icy sky January 5, 2010. Pre-dawn. Intercoastal heliport. 05.00 am. Ffffff…..k. It’s cold. The temperature is down in the low thirties. A heavy frost blankets everything. Our rotor blades shine a dull white. It’s dark, quiet, save for the distant muttering coming from the passenger…
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The Gentle Drunk
The Gentle Drunk If you were a career old drunk in Dublin fair city in the nineteen seventies, then apart from begging, scrounging, watching the girls, and hoping for a hot meal, one other important consideration was “getting back to the hostel” in time. “Hostel” was perhaps too fine word. “Flophouse” would be politically incorrect.…
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The Outlaw
The Outlaw (I drove my motorbike to the sea) I watched a dreamer by the sea observe me,softly, haltingly, His face was tired but not unkind I sensed a windmill in his mind. Alone upon the beach he stood A member of the brotherhood I saw the biker garb he wore And knew I’d seen…