Tree Top Flyer Poem by Clyde King

They call me the tree top flyer
‘cause I don't go no higher.
I smuggle guns, people, and drugs everyday.
They'll never catch me, damn the DEA.

In Vietnam I flew spotter planes
but I was grounded when it rained.
When I got up there in the cool air
I had no worries, I didn't care.

But you got to fly low and fast
so the NVA won't kill your ass.
When I got home couldn't get a job,
so I bought an airplane and started to rob

the rich of their cash by smuggling dope.
Being hunted is a hard way to cope.
I fly the canyons when the sun goes down
and set my plane on some hidden ground.

I'm the tree top flyer you bet.
A better pilot you've never met.
Thanks to Vietnam I got a trade.
I ain't once ever been afraid

of cops, federales or the DEA
‘cause they never see me so they say:
He's the tree top flyer, he's a ghost.
We'll get him so let him boast.

We'll shoot him down
or get him on the ground.
There's a price on his head,
alive or dead.

He knows in the end
he hasn't got a friend.