DANIEL E. BLACKSTON
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   Creativity & Reflections
by Daniel E. Blackston

Flying Death Poem

10/27/2022

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Picture
 I want you to consider two things right now: plane crashes and poetry. 

Some of us might think it would be a grand gesture to write one last poem on a plunging plane -- moments before death.  

Some of us might think it would be cool if we could write a poem  that  predicted  the future. 

Lee Campbell may have come close to do doing both.

On February 25th,1989, United Airlines flight 811 experienced and emergency when a cargo door blew open, ripping a hole in its fuselage that sucked nine passengers out into the sky above the Pacific ocean.  A four minute fall to the sea waited for all of them, including the twenty-four-year-old Campbell. 

Of course it goes without saying that Campbell and the others all plunged to their deaths.  Many questions surrounded the disaster; Campbell's family remained persistent in trying to find answers. 

 One eerily interesting thing  that Campbell's parents found after their son's death  was the following poem that he'd written not long before the disaster:

`Was That Me?''
​

Waves hypnotizing me with green, beckoning fingers
A dream of space flight weightlessness
Air rushes past to fill a vacuum,
Progressive holes which must be filled

That's all there is to the poem, unfortunately.   However this little poem  says a lot, does it not?  What I'd like you to do is simply imagine that the poem was written by someone who didn't die in a plane crash. 

Is it still an interesting poem ?   

What do you make of the title ?

I have my own  thoughts as always, but for now, I'll simply say that this little fragment-poem can teach us all a lot -- it's up to us  to extract all we can from it and from Campbell's unfortunate death.

You might say that any poem can teach us a lot -- and that's true, but I still think this one's special.  I hope you do too.  Please leave a comment or send me an email or a message to let me know how you feel about it. 

Also if you'd like a set of fresh eyes for your poetic endeavors, I offer a poem polishing service. I think you'll be happy with the results, so check it out my clicking the link below. 

 You can also order my Seven Secrets of Poetry PDF by clicking the button below.

Read Lee's full story by clicking on the plane crash picture above. 
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  • Home
  • Stone Secrets Blog
  • SERVICES & FEEDBACK
    • POETRY FEEDBACK
    • Critiques and Editing
    • Poem Polisher
  • 7 Secrets of Poetry
  • Blackston Bio
  • Discover
  • ESSAYS
    • Non-Local Consciousness
    • Self-Identity
    • Being and Knowing
    • ​Concerning Kandinsky
    • Existential Metaphors
    • Sylvia Plath's "Tulips"
    • Sylvia Plath's "Blackberrying"
    • Sylvia Plath’s Ariel
  • MISSION
  • OCCULT & MAGICK
    • Ghost Flower
    • Order of the Crow