High above, the black aeroplanes droned in circles. Thrown together from odds and ends, bits of steel, whatever was left-over, they flew admirably well, swarming with harrowing skill. But we wondered if they were there to protect us or destroy us, and  dreaded the ambiguity.
      After months of the perpetual moaning, I raised a flag of surrender, to no avail. In my dreams, the sound droned on. When I awoke, I tried to get used to it.

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A few years ago, I took a book about Magritte, the surrealist painter, out of the library. I'd seen his paintings before and was so captivated by the images in the book that I began trying to write poems about them. His universe is so out of whack that my mind always does a double take when I look at his images. This one is much less well known than the famous ones like Time Transfixed (with the locomotive coming out of the fireplace) or The Empire of Light (night and day on the same street) and I forget which of my many Magritte books it appears in, but if you want to know, I'll find it.