Inside: Poems about flying when you want to get away. Whether you’re an aviation fan or a fan of the concept of just freely flying away, these are for you.
When asked what my superpower would be, I usually always say flying. I would love the ability to go anywhere at any time on my own time. To be able to just up and fly to New York City or Los Angeles and go visit my favorite cities at the drop of a dime is such a dream, why wouldn’t anyone choose to fly as their superpower?
There are some people out there that choose to make it their reality and choose to go above and beyond with it, and learn how to literally fly. Planes of course!
And those that have chosen this path for a career are so deeply passionate about the sky and flying, it’s beautiful. Maybe this is you and that’s what has brought you to this search today. If you’re here because of your love for flying, welcome. And I hope you love these poems.
Escapism is a very real trait too that might have led you to searching for poems about flying. We’re not just going to cover the planes and the aviation lovers’ poetry today, I’ve collected a few others about wanting to fly away and get away.
When you look into the sky, birds seem so peaceful just drifting through the air where no one else can catch them, catch up to them, or get in their way. Down here on the ground, we’ve got a lot of things in our way throughout the day. When I’m stressed and overwhelmed, the thought of just drifting sounds so nice.
I envy birds.
So let’s dive into some of these poems about flying to feel the freedom that comes with the ability to fly.
Ways Of Flying
When you hear the word fly, the first word that comes to mind probably says a lot about you. You’ve got so many different ways of flying or different meanings behind it, especially if you’re looking into poetry about it.
People romanticize flying to heaven, flying with wings, about flying and seeing God. There’s a lot of depth in these concepts and stories, and the poetry about them is likely deep and whimsical.
If you’re into planes and flying them, it’s a really passionate career or hobby. People that are drawn to the sky really love it. So these poems are passionate and dreaming of the sky during all hours of the day. The freedom and the passion that pilots find in the sky and in flying is inspiring! These poems relay that feeling too.
A common theme in poetry too is about birds and how they are so free. Freedom is truly the underlying theme of most flying poetry, and they’re so right. The freedom in the sky in unmatched and there’s so much to relate to and feel while flying free in the air.
Let’s get into some of these poems about flying so you can feel what it’s like to get away.
Aviation Poems
Flying a plane is obviously no easy feat– it’s gotta be a source of passion in order to do it and be passionate about it.
1. History Of The Airplane
And the Wright brothers said they thought they had invented
something that could make peace on earth
(if the wrong brothers didn’t get hold of it)
when their wonderful flying machine took off at Kitty Hawk
into the kingdom of birds but the parliament of birds was freaked out
by this man-made bird and fled to heaven
And then the famous Spirit of Saint Louis took off eastward and
flew across the Big Pond with Lindy at the controls in his leather
helmet and goggles hoping to sight the doves of peace but he did not
Even though he circled Versailles
And then the famous Yankee Clipper took off in the opposite
direction and flew across the terrific Pacific but the pacific doves
were frighted by this strange amphibious bird and hid in the orient sky
And then the famous Flying Fortress took off bristling with guns
and testosterone to make the world safe for peace and capitalism
but the birds of peace were nowhere to be found before or after Hiroshima
And so then clever men built bigger and faster flying machines and
these great man-made birds with jet plumage flew higher than any
real birds and seemed about to fly into the sun and melt their wings
and like Icarus crash to earth
And the Wright brothers were long forgotten in the high-flying
bombers that now began to visit their blessings on various Third
Worlds all the while claiming they were searching for doves of
peace
And they kept flying and flying until they flew right into the 21st
century and then one fine day a Third World struck back and
stormed the great planes and flew them straight into the beating
heart of Skyscraper America where there were no aviaries and no
parliaments of doves and in a blinding flash America became a part
of the scorched earth of the world
And a wind of ashes blows across the land
And for one long moment in eternity
There is chaos and despair
And buried loves and voices
Cries and whispers
Fill the air
Everywhere
2. A Story For A Rose On The Midnight Flight To Boston
Until tonight they were separate specialties,
different stories, the best of their own worst.
Riding my warm cabin home, I remember Betsy’s
laughter; she laughed as you did, Rose, at the first
story. Someday, I promised her, I’ll be someone
going somewhere and we plotted it in the humdrum
school for proper girls. The next April the plane
bucked me like a horse, my elevators turned
and fear blew down my throat, that last profane
gauge of a stomach coming up. And then returned
to land, as unlovely as any seasick sailor,
sincerely eighteen; my first story, my funny failure.
Maybe Rose, there is always another story,
better unsaid, grim or flat or predatory.
Half a mile down the lights of the in-between cities
turn up their eyes at me. And I remember Betsy’s
story, the April night of the civilian air crash
and her sudden name misspelled in the evening paper,
the interior of shock and the paper gone in the trash
ten years now. She used the return ticket I gave her.
This was the rude kill of her; two planes cracking
in mid-air over Washington, like blind birds.
And the picking up afterwards, the morticians tracking
bodies in the Potomac and piecing them like boards
to make a leg or a face. There is only her miniature
photograph left, too long now for fear to remember.
Special tonight because I made her into a story
that I grew to know and savor.
A reason to worry,
Rose, when you fix an old death like that,
and outliving the impact, to find you’ve pretended.
We bank over Boston. I am safe. I put on my hat.
I am almost someone going home. The story has ended.
3. Impressions Of A Pilot
Flight is freedom in its purest form,
To dance with the clouds which follow a storm;
To roll and glide, to wheel and spin,
To feel the joy that swells within.
To leave the earth with its troubles and fly,
And know the warmth of a clear spring sky;
Then back to earth at the end of the day,
Released from the tensions which melted away.
Should my end come while I am in flight,
Whether brightest day or darkest night;
Spare me no pity and shrug off the pain,
Secure in the knowledge that I’d do it again.
For each of us is created to die,
And within me I know,
I was born to fly.
4. She Was A Phantom Of Delight
And now I see with eye serene
The very pulse of the machine;
A Being breathing thoughtful breath,
A Traveller between life and death;
The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill;
A perfect Woman, nobly planned,
To warn, to comfort, and command;
And yet a Spirit still, and bright
With something of angelic light.
5. An Airman’s Grace
Lord of the thunderhead and sky
You placed in us the will to fly,
You taught our hand speed, skill and grace
To soar beyond our dwelling place.
You shared with us the eagle’s view,
The right to soar as eagle’s do,
The right to call the clouds our home,
And grateful, through your heavens roam.
May we assembled here tonight,
And all who love the thrill of flight,
Recall with twofold gratitude,
Your gift of wings, your gift of food.
By Father John W. MacGillivray
Poems About Birds Flying
I’ll say it again– I envy birds. The way they can take flight any time and be anywhere they want? Sign me up!
Here are some poems of others thinking the same thing.
6. To a Skylark
Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!
Bird thou never wert,
That from Heaven, or near it,
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.
Higher still and higher
From the earth thou springest
Like a cloud of fire;
The blue deep thou wingest,
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.
In the golden lightning
Of the sunken sun,
O’er which clouds are bright’ning,
Thou dost float and run;
Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.
The pale purple even
Melts around thy flight;
Like a star of Heaven,
In the broad day-light
Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight,
Keen as are the arrows
Of that silver sphere,
Whose intense lamp narrows
In the white dawn clear
Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.
All the earth and air
With thy voice is loud,
As, when night is bare,
From one lonely cloud
The moon rains out her beams, and Heaven is overflow’d.
What thou art we know not;
What is most like thee?
From rainbow clouds there flow not
Drops so bright to see
As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.
Like a Poet hidden
In the light of thought,
Singing hymns unbidden,
Till the world is wrought
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not:
Like a high-born maiden
In a palace-tower,
Soothing her love-laden
Soul in secret hour
With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower:
Like a glow-worm golden
In a dell of dew,
Scattering unbeholden
Its aereal hue
Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view:
Like a rose embower’d
In its own green leaves,
By warm winds deflower’d,
Till the scent it gives
Makes faint with too much sweet those heavy-winged thieves:
Sound of vernal showers
On the twinkling grass,
Rain-awaken’d flowers,
All that ever was
Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass.
…
7. Dreams
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
8. Birds In Flight
“Free as a bird,” that’s what we always say,
“It’s time to spread my wings and fly away,
I have to find myself, fly high and free!”
Birds are the metaphors of liberty.
They seem free, for they have the gift of flight,
to move in three dimensions as they might,
gliding untrammeled: all the classic scenes
in paintings, poems and the movie screens!
The seascapes where they soar with mournful cries
over the ocean, in the open skies.
It isn’t really so: their path is mapped
and predetermined; instinct has them trapped.
Just like remote control, some unseen force
will keep them moving on just one set course.
Aren’t we the same? We head back to a nest,
To boundaries that someone else deems best.
We cannot think for long outside the box;
we move with others in conforming flocks.
9. Birds In Flight
A bird’s heart beats about ten times the speed
Of man’s. He reads the signs that supersede
What we perceive; he can predict a storm,
Presage an earthquake’s shocks, and as a norm
Can navigate without a GPS.
And in old myths? A bird can curse or bless.
Two eagles’ flight foretells the Odyssey
Is near its end and one day faithfully
The hero will bring long due punishment.
In ancient China, phoenix sightings meant
A sage was born on Earth, a golden age
Had come. A bird may fit within a cage
Indeed, but on the clouds his spirit flies.
Though one may sink, ten thousand more will rise
Connected by the innate traits of race
Into a single mind transcending space.
And thus he can deliver omens’ news,
Which share so freely with us Heaven’s views.
10. I Am A Bird Flying Free
I am a bird flying free with my thoughts,
Form my nesting tree I gallantly fought,
Every sinister wing and feather flown,
That tried to endanger my happy home.
Imagination is my sky, countless as stars,
Smoothly I fly pass the Moon, Sun & Mars,
Landing on Jupiter gently wetting my beak,
Lest on the return trip I get too tired or weak.
I chirp for my freedom with a heavenly song,
This way the journey will not seem as long,
My wings are better known as love and peace,
Embracing wisdom, reason never fails to cease.
From the hunter my fears are light years away,
Because of his shots in the air I choose to stay,
Not alone in flight, yeah with others it all began,
Free from deceit & bitterness of the wicked man.
Or should I rightly pronounce hatred by evil ones?
The devil’s daughters hand in hand with his sons,
Planet of my youth has grown callused and cold,
Just had to escape for the joy of experiencing old.
Of course no one lives forever that would be long,
Eventually even the birds would run out of song,
Life is meant for happiness with a taste so sweet,
Not combativeness destruction, win against defeat.
The Soulful Creator of the universe never did intend,
For His flock to be devoured savagely in the lions den,
Shaken by the piercing, thunderous, king of beast roar,
Escaping from forced captivity through the air we soar.
Up, up and away like a Siamese cloud of common feathers,
United in one thought unaffected by all seasonal weather,
Our tails bearing the sign of a glorious Tunisian insignia,
An eloquent masterpiece by Miss Glamorous Enigma.
Get Away
Ready to get away? Me too. Here are some poems to help with that.
11. Flying Inside Your Own Body
Your lungs fill & spread themselves,
wings of pink blood, and your bones
empty themselves and become hollow.
When you breathe in you’ll lift like a balloon
and your heart is light too & huge,
beating with pure joy, pure helium.
The sun’s white winds blow through you,
there’s nothing above you,
you see the earth now as an oval jewel,
radiant & seablue with love.
It’s only in dreams you can do this.
Waking, your heart is a shaken fist,
a fine dust clogs the air you breathe in;
the sun’s a hot copper weight pressing straight
down on the think pink rind of your skull.
It’s always the moment just before gunshot.
You try & try to rise but you cannot.
12. Because I fly
I laugh more than other men
I look up an see more than they,
I know how the clouds feel,
What it’s like to have the blue in my lap,
to look down on birds,
to feel freedom in a thing called the stick…
who but I can slice between God’s billowed legs,
and feel then laugh and crash with His step
Who else has seen the unclimbed peaks?
The rainbow’s secret?
The real reason birds sing?
Because I Fly,
I envy no man on earth.
13. Delight Is As The Flight
Delight is as the flight—
Or in the Ratio of it,
As the Schools would say—
The Rainbow’s way—
A Skein
Flung colored, after Rain,
Would suit as bright,
Except that flight
Were Aliment—
“If it would last”
I asked the East,
When that Bent Stripe
Struck up my childish
Firmament—
And I, for glee,
Took Rainbows, as the common way,
And empty Skies
The Eccentricity—
And so with Lives—
And so with Butterflies—
Seen magic—through the fright
That they will cheat the sight—
And Dower latitudes far on—
Some sudden morn—
Our portion—in the fashion—
Done—
14. Cape Hatteras
Breathe deep, mine eyes, the frosty saga of eternal suns
From unseen depths and dreams undreamt,
I sing the gleaming cantos of unvanquished space
By thought I embrace the universal
With wings of mind I sail the infinitude
Glory! ’tis the stars which beckon man’s spirit and set our souls adrift!
15. I Lay My Head
I lay my head upon the softness of its mane
My white charger, no knight for a swain
as I am the gallant rider looking for love.
Riding the green valleys with mountains above,
looking for hope in natures fertile plain
A dream, a carousel of tears and pain
With bobbing horses making a colourful train
Flying above a sure sign of hope, a dove
I lay my head
Imagination in play as I search in vain
Why from happiness must I abstain
My empty heart crying out to those above
Praying each night, please bring me love
Grabbing a handful of the silky white mane
I lay my head
Poems About Flying
16. Flying Crooked
The butterfly, the cabbage white,
(His honest idiocy of flight)
Will never now, it is too late,
Master the art of flying straight,
Yet has — who knows so well as I? —
A just sense of how not to fly:
He lurches here and here by guess
And God and hope and hopelessness.
Even the aerobatic swift
Has not his flying-crooked gift.
17. High Flight
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, – and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of – wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air…
Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or ever eagle flew –
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
18. A Song For John
On a windy day, let’s go on flying.
There may be no trees to rest on,
There may be no clouds to ride.
But we’ll have our wings and the wind will be with us,
That’s enough for me,
That’s enough for me.
19. Flying
Something in altitude kindles power-thirst
Mere horse-height suffices the emir
Bestowing from rich folds of prodigious turban
Upon crawling peasants in the dust
Rare imperceptible nods enwrapped
In princely boredom.
I too have known
A parching of that primordial palate,
A quickening to manifest life
Of a long recessive appetite.
Though strapped and manacled
That day I commanded from the pinnacle
Of a three-tiered world a bridge befitting
The proud deranged deity I had become.
A magic rug of rushing clouds
Billowed and rubbed its white softness
Like practiced houri fingers on my sole
And through filters of its gauzy fabric
Revealed wonders of a metropolis
Magic-struck to fairyland proportions.
By different adjustments of vision
I caused the clouds to float
Over a stilled landscape, over towers
And masts and smoke-plumed chimneys;
Or turned the very earth, unleashed
From itself, a roaming fugitive
Beneath a constant sky. Then came
A sudden brightness over the world,
A rare winter’s smile it was, and printed
On my cloud carpet a black cross
Set in an orb of rainbows. To which
Splendid nativity came–who else would come
But gray unsporting Reason, faithless
Pedant offering a bald refractory annunciation?
But oh what beauty! What speed!
A chariot of night in panic flight
From Our Royal Proclamation of the rites
Of day! And riding out Our procession
Of fantasy We slaked an ancient
Vestigial greed shriveled by ages of dormancy
Till the eyes exhausted by glorious pageantries
Returned to rest on that puny
Legend of the life jacket stowed away
Of all places under my seat.
Now I think I know why gods
Are so partial to heights—to mountain
Tops and spires, to proud iroko trees
And thorn-guarded holy bombax,
Why petty household divinities
Will sooner perch on a rude board
Strung precariously from brittle rafters
Of a thatched roof than sit squarely
On safe earth.
20. Another Chance To Fly
Each day I live and wake to see
the scarlet sun that shines for me
and listen to a feathered song
inviting me to sing along
I know I’ll find just what I seek
though rain may come to kiss my cheek
for with each day, with every sigh
there comes another chance to fly
The bluest blues of azure seas
are calling me now to appease
to leave behind an angry man
and wing away, I know I can
With love and grace, I’ll find the way
as I then glide through twilight gray
and to the clouds, I say goodbye
here comes another chance to fly
Flying With Wings
Human beings with wings is a romanticized image of what angels could be like. A concept commonly found in the arts.
21. My Courageous Sister
Courage is the price that
Life exacts for granting peace.
The soul that knows it not, knows no release
From little things:
Knows not the livid loneliness of fear,
Nor mountain heights where bitter joy can hear
The sound of wings.
22. Please Give Me Wings
Wash my heart and make it clean
Remove the grime from where it’s been
Take my idle hands make them yours
Use them to open holy doors
My cracked lips long to sing your praise
Be my Mistro the rest of my days
Guide my calloused feet along your path
I wish to know Love and not your wrath
Take my arms place them around the poor
Help me realize I need less not more
Plant your precious thoughts in my mind
Change me from selfish, make me kind
let me see your face with my eyes
Remove my ignorance make me wise
Apart from you I cannot be whole
Thank’s for this reconditioned soul
One day my life will end, I know it’s true
Please give me wings, so I can fly to you
23. Fly Little Bird
Go on little bird, take flight
Up, up high, set your sight
Let your colors reach full potential
Strive to be great, stand monumental
Fly little bird, fly up high
Let yourself be seen, don’t be shy
Stay confident, stop doubting
You’ll simply waste time with all the hiding
Go on little bird, take flight
You won’t be alone, there shall be light
Guidance and help will be by your side
So don’t let fright, nor worry, step inside
Fly little bird, fly up high
Don’t settle for less, aim for the sky
Dream big, no limit is set for you
Remember, there’s nothing you can’t do
Go on little bird, take flight
Spread your wings
Reach your dreams
Fly little bird, fly up high
Poems about flying are so freeing and make me feel all of the free feelings that come with flying. The getting away feeling is so real, and I know we’ve all been there. Life can be a lot sometimes, so to be able to fly away at any moment is the ideal. Get away from everything but then also being able to go TO something fun, exciting, and relaxing is the goal, any day of the week.
If you love flying planes and have a deep love for aviation and the sky, hopefully these poems hit home and give you all of the inspo you need from poetry. Maybe you need to give a card to an airplane lover in your life, and these poems helped you put together the perfect birthday wishes.
Need some other hobby poems? Check out these 17 golf poems! You’re going to love them.
