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In close formation.

By PETER DENT.

HOW LONG HAVE we been waiting for such a sighting?

probability rates the chances of that first flight
being around 1989 as ‘better than average’
but ‘intellectual credibility’? no I hardly think so
take maintenance costs for example:
they suggest getting to Mach 6 and holding it

without institutional meddling can demonstrate
the project is not just undoable but is actually
a bit of a diversion I mean the use of a ramjet
to get you close to that figure is as likely as not
not an option for the faint-hearted so it is

it’s put about we were never meant for this (ALT
+ S being one technique to get out of a jam
then have pseudonyms do the rest) remember
how an earlier version flew privately effortlessly
but without conviction? my favourite side-

slip was the one about Thrace – whose music
not to mention its early poetry was the first port
of call for heavies supposing you needed same
(in those days you’d be considered odd if you
didn’t subsidiary clauses being brought in

overnight) now you treat texts like the plague
and factor in heat-resistant stainless steel – the
perfect cover imagine the furore whenever
the word ‘ectoplasm’ gets a mention
in conjunction with some secondary product!

so yes games go critical if you don’t keep up
and that’s hard constellations will look down
and wonder what on earth’s the fuss about
but then you won’t find one outdoing another
some regions of the sky are awash with stars

refuelling and firing up the aurora comes at a price


Peter Dent was born in Forest Gate, London, but has spent most of his life in Surrey and Devon. A teacher for twenty years, he is now retired, devoting the greater part of his time to writing. He was the editor/publisher of Interim Press from 1975 to 1987, where he published numerous volumes of poetry and essays on such writers as George Oppen, Lorine Niedecker, Thomas A. Clark and Allen Upward. With others he has translated from the Sanskrit and Urdu. His own work, both poetry and prose-poetry, has been published widely in magazines and anthologies both in Britain and abroad. He is the author, most recently, of Handmade Equations.

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