Poem: Lifters
When the Lifter phenomenon began to break. Most of the Lifters themselves didn't demonstrate any anomalous effects, the thrust being explained by electrohydrodynamic effects of ion wind, but the legend of the 'true' Biefeld-Brown Effect - the miniscule, barely detectable variant which shows up, impossibly, in hard vacuum, and even then only in transient spikes - persists.
Lifters
for Jean-Louis Naudin
I.
Triangle of tin
foil and balsa, wire and glue
so my spirit soars.
II.
Thirty kilovolts
is the breakdown point of awe
this force has no name.
III.
Discs in autumn cloud
sunspot blurs on Kodachrome
how long did they lie?
IV.
Webcam videos
capture frozen images
scales tipping up -
V.
Tesla, Townsend Brown
legend, alchemy, deceit
-- but it flies, it flies!
