Taking Flight [Major Revision-New Title]

[Achebe]

you are after all, posting in Serious, so...

Phases 

Lifestyle of day/night phases: - this line sets up the expectation of what the poem is going to be about, which is fine. However, since this line in itself has no poetic merit, you might as well make this the title.
watchful to the east
until our sun sets
when I look to the west. ..... the first of my 'what the hell did I just read' moments. I struggle to understand the point of these three lines. They do not paint a picture, they do not tell a story, they do not sing a song, they do not say anything banal in an interesting way. And no, they do not convey a sense of the monotonous predictability of a (presumably) 24x7 work lifestyle, if that was the intention.
 
The plane to New York
follows east.
By the end of twenty-two hours,
I will have lost nothing,
not even a day.  ..... the second of my wthdijr moments. you can't take up an entire stanza / strophe to tell the reader that crossing the international date line is an unsettling experience for you. I correct myself - you can tell the reader that, but it's a bit like saying that Monday mornings get you down. It is disturbingly banal.
 
When the plane travels
west again, I'll wonder where
two days have been. ... banality twice over.
 
 
A verse for starlight gazes. ...what?
Stars that I know
down south, where I live,
will reverse in New York ...and whirlpools form counterclockwise, and the shadow move clockwise, and the seasons alternate...what is your point?? is the reader expected to learn for the first time that the earth is round?
and return again here.
A watchful eye
to Orion's sky;
the only thing I'll recognise....is that because you are bad at reading the sky? what about scorpio?
 
And now,
like clockwork,
through time-zones I go:
I'll follow planes east,
and where the planes stop,
I'll follow east further
and wind back at home... wthdijr? what is the point of saying this again?