40,000 feet - Tony Matthews: Your Composer of Note

Trying to sleep at 40,000 feet

Where space and atmosphere sort of meet

Up above are twinkling stars

Down below, all dinky cars

Except the fact we’re over snow

Possibly Greenland down below

Seems quite funny, quite a lot

Down there I guess is rather cold

Yet inside plane it’s rather hot

We have to watch the films they show

Their choice of film makes we want to go

Anywhere to escape this pain

Even outside the aeroplane.

But thinking about the course of life

Makes me think of my dear wife;

She really is a lovely miss

And rather good at a smoochy kiss

I listen to the radio,

Classical music on the go,

Some of it is good a classy,

Some of vulgar and trashy (but quite exciting).

So as I type another verse,

I’m sure the rhymes’ll get steadily worse.

Had a meal of congealed pasta

Now that really is, kind of nasta.

Told you the rhymes would be all wrong!

Oops, the plane’s just done a bong,

Seems the air has got the hump

And given the plane a little bump

Actually it was an alto,

Or a sensitive contralto,

Thus my ears were spared the curse,

Of notes above the stave or worse.

My god! What’s this I’m hearing now

A bloke who can sing rather low

I can’t imagine him as my mate

With his pitch control approximate

How many versus of this poxy song?

I’m sure he’s singing it all wrong.

I am sure the notes he’s just kissed

Are lonely as they’ve all been missed.

So I’m trying to sleep up in the air,

My wife, next to me, does not care

That I’m in pain for goodness sake

And very, very much awake.

But wait what is this, a sleepy dawn?

A welcome, joyful, big mouthed yawn?

Hopef’lly it’ll lead to more

A soon I’ll start to happily snore.

So here I am high in the sky,

Still, awake, I know not why,

Perhaps I’ll try some mid-air booze,

To bring on my high-altitude snooze….

[Tony Matthews 2012]