#115 Kevin Brophy 'Propeller'

#115 ‘Propeller’

When Marcel Duchamp walked in

to the Aeronautics Salon of the Grand Palais

in Paris in 1912

he saw a creamy new propeller on display

and remarked,

technology now surpasses art.

Several thousand people every year

find their heads explode as they stroll

unaware into one of these sublimely made

invisibly spinning blades.

The invisible art of the propeller

keeps us airborne for hour after hour

skipping cloud to cloud on prayers and thermal bumps

up and down the sky’s unseen towers—

no wires,

our heads full of hope and floating light

on the white trembling tips of those nacelle wings

hung on the frightful miraculous beauty

of a perfectly invisible technology.