Prestwick Airport
Prestwick Airport has had a strong military presence since World War II. Most of the information is classified, but it is widely speculated that the airport has been fundamental in refuelling places during various invasions of the Middle East and transporting US prisoners of war.
People always ask if the noise bothers me
but I have become accustomed to rattling
windows, blinking lights and a distant taste of diesel.
Outside my house, white-haired men
in body warmers stand on stepladders
watching planes through binoculars.
I survey them out the window
while I have my morning cup of tea. I am a hawk
for bald spots on these faceless men.
Their phallic camera lenses
twist in and out
like snipers ready to shoot.
I like to pretend they are paparazzi,
desperate to catch me candid
with a lover for Hello! and Heat.
I am used to budget airlines shuttling holidaymakers
to Málaga, Faros, Alicante. I imagine them clutching
matching boarding passes, giddy after 8am pints.
The other planes only come at night. They swoop in
grey and big-bellied. Bullets clink in the back
like glass bottles in a delivery truck.
They land to refuel, for soldiers to stretch their legs,
call home, tell their families they’ve stopped off
in the unknown.
I watch a documentary about Aleppo. A family
flees. They are the last in the city to leave.
Their sky is loaded with metal.
I sigh, switching off the TV. The rumble
drifts in and out. I sleep soundly
like it is all so far away,
like the birds have picked
out my eyes, like it has nothing
to do with me.
About this poem
This poem was included in Best Scottish Poems 2022. Best Scottish Poems is an online publication, consisting of 20 poems chosen by a different editor each year, with comments by the editor and poets. It provides a personal overview of a year of Scottish poetry. The editor in 2022 was Ifor ap Glyn.
Editor’s note:
An important reminder of how the UK’s military involvement is hidden in plain sight. Leisurely descriptions of noise and smell, nerdy men with cameras, and tipsy holidaymakers heading for the Med all seem very normal (except for the suggestive use of the words ‘hawk’ and ‘snipers’) But then we have the planes who ‘only come at night’ and the superbly everyday imagery of bullets clinking ‘like glass bottles in a delivery truck’ and the soldiers needing to stretch their legs – this all seems very ‘normal’ too, and the poet falls asleep ‘like the birds have picked out my eyes, like it has nothing to do me.’ But of course, the poet’s eyes are still intact, as are those of her readers; we are thus made complicit – and challenged to respond.
Author’s note:
There is a general feeling in Scotland that war has nothing to do with us. That we are off the hook and don’t partake in the horrors that happen across the globe. When I lived in Prestwick it was hard to ignore our involvement when military planes swoop in and out at all hours of the day. I wanted to write something about feeling very far away from war when it’s actually on our doorstep. I wanted to highlight something that I could no longer ignore to people that may have no idea.
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Leyla Josephine
Leyla Josephine is a poet, theatre and filmmaker from Glasgow.