KITE FLYING, CAR DRIVING by Andrew Taylor

Only Franklin or the empty-headed
fly their kites while lightening
bothers distance yet here
the feather-headed ply their brains
along thin string and a twist
or two of hands. But nothing alights
like a falcon, the whimpering string
strains and relaxes, the kite
flutters its tethered emptiness and swoops
to catch only itself.

At 150 most cars take a life
on of their own
and decide the driver
is either ok or dead. At 160
the driver decides again. It’s a great
gap, 150 to 160,
like surf, you throw yourself
forward, ahead of yourself
and none of those little ties
to family or love exist.

Lightening crackles close, they fly
their pig-headed kites some more, then quit.
But at 160 you put your foot right down
eager for the rest of it


This poem is included in my forthcoming book, The Unhaunting, which Salt Publishing will bring out before the end of this year. It follows a poem about surfing, which I will explain later.

Ever since I was a teenager I’ve loved driving. Not driving madly, but watching the country in front whip past and new territory open up ahead. This poem grows out of that, even if at my age today I’ve become wary of driving for too long, since two of my friends were killed when the driver fell asleep on a long trip. Driving is dangerous, and that’s another reason why I find it enlivening.

Danger enters the poem in another way too, which is not explicit. In 1971 I was walking on the beach at Cape Hatteras where the Wright brothers made the world’s first flight in a powered aircraft. It’s long, and very flat, which I suppose is why they chose it. A thunderstorm blew up, and I watched lightening getting closer and closer. Soon I could see it striking the sand maybe half a mile (this was in the USA, of course) in front of me. I still kept walking towards it, half mesmerised but also consciously daring myself, as the lightening got closer. I was a lightening conductor, the only vertical thing on that deserted expanse of sand, and by now I was covered in water. Suddenly I turned and ran.

Benjamin Franklin discovered that lightening consisted of electricity by flying a kite in a lightening storm. He was crazy to do it, but was also one of his century’s great minds. Other people fly kites, float ideas or pretensions, but to no purpose. They’re empty-headed or feather brained (unlike the bird kites or falcons, who wear their feathers on the outside and are all muscle and determination inside).
I’m used to driving fast. In Germany, where I spend a fair slice of each year, it’s normal to do 140 to 150 on the Autobahn. But there’s a thrill pushing just that 10 k or more, and more, faster, as there is in surfing, and finding out how you can deal with and control the incredible force you’re riding. The poem’s about pushing yourself beyond what you thought your limits were, and finding more landscape opens up to you.

An anecdote. In the early 1970s I was driving one of the first Datsun 240Zs in Australia through the Adelaide Hills, before the freeway was completed. A huge red Ford challenged me and we upped the speed and upped it again and again, startled cars vanishing like mosquitoes in the rear vision mirror as we manoeuvred to pass or overtake, until I reckoned we – the car and I – had reached its limits. I pulled into a gas station, but the big red souped-up Ford pulled in beside me and a huge guy leaped out and rushed across. I scrambled to wind up the window but too late. He grabbed my hand and shook it and said ‘Jees, that was fucking great. I was pushing 180 and you was still pulling ahead of me!’ We could have been friends for life.