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The Aeroplane Collector

by Stryngs

/

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lyrics

I entered your blizzard of model aeroplanes:
a swarm of lounge-locusts, room-consumers,
covering every surface with
compass greys, desert yellows and Brunswick greens.
You told me your days were inadequate, but for the planes.
I learned how you stroked them together:
soothing paint over their smooth bodies;
your slender fingers beating and chanting until a plane became.
For a fleeting, race-end moment the breath would coil in your throat
and your creation seemed almost to stir,
to soar over foreign tongues and under jet-white suns.
Then the rasp of plastic against your hand;
you’d hear the calls of ground control.
You’d have to take up another plane to fill the rows of tomorrows.

We wintered in your room like a kiss behind closed curtains.
The planes peeped out from all around the house,
though the fleet never grew in all those days.
Instead, you obsessed over me,
and I obsessed over being obsessed over by you.
You stroked me with fine-tipped brushes;
gave me wings and gently clipped them;
you took me apart and put me back together;
you covered me in love so delicate and heavy, that I could barely move.
I was a model, but so real, I seemed almost to stir,
to soar over foreign tongues and under jet-white suns.
Then one night, adultery: the gleam of novelty.
Betrayed, I knew the naked plane.
Your back was turned, and you would not turn back.

I idled in your fleet for many hours
- a former toy - now part of a greater collection.
But I was cut by life and you were merely torn,
for I was not content to be
your glance across a continent.
I left you trembling in my turbulence as I
rose upon that thermal;
left you kneeling over broken wings and bent propellers,
scattered squadrons and burnt-out husks, oil spills.

As I stole away on my silent, secret sortie,
I sought to soar over foreign tongues and under jet-white suns.
My freedom scarred white trails outside your window.

I soar over foreign tongues and under jet-white suns.
You and I have such different skies now.

I soar over foreign tongues and under jet-white suns.
You and I have such different skies now.

I soar over foreign tongues and under jet-white suns.
My freedom scars white trails outside your window.

credits

released May 1, 2006
Ross/Stringer

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Stryngs Hampshire, UK

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