Broadening the mind
From airports to archaeological sites,
from bus stations to beaches,
from railway platforms to rural retreats -
which is the crucial bit?
The journey, or the destination?
Airport
A place of glacial transition
Of slow moving thrombotic queues
That fold in on themselves in a
Theme park origami of dull infinity
Getting nowhere
Inexorably
A place of diminutive dictators
In gold-buttoned blazers
A-line skirts and navy tights
Who can turn potential passengers
Back
Like Canute and the waves
Because of one overweight
Obese piece of hand luggage
A place of delays
Where expectant arrivals
Can be held up
By the fickle concentration
Of angry isobars
Deflecting flights into
An endless jig and reel
High over the twinkling landing lights
A place of deception
Where, if you’re feeling brave
You could be Jerry Barnes
For the day
Order champagne and caviar
In the swanky suite
Of some posh hotel
Make high rolling, highfaluting
Business decisions
In a crucial company meeting
Before being escorted off
The premises by security.
A place of many threads
Brilliant beginnings
Multiple narratives
And unexpected endings
Human life captured
In cathedral-like high-ceilinged
Curtain walled
Incomprehensibly Tannoyed
Magnificence.
Gatekeepers
One of them, she has the air of the
wrinkled and washed out, as if on the
brink of retirement. She’s only 19, but
she’s been drinking Monster since she
was in primary school.
Another is a bespectacled and
disappointed Guinea pig, brownsuited
and dull-tied. Favourite word: No.
The third, who is either the
patriarch, or just punctual, in a navy
blue polyester two-piece,
Clean-shaven before breakfast, now
fully and luxuriantly bearded.
These are the gatekeepers. It’ll not
end well.
St. Christopher Has Deserted Us
A travel disaster of Brobdingnagian proportions
starts with waiting for the first bus of the morning
which is neither at the airport
nor at the bus station
Maybe it’s both
Schrödinger’s coach
But hurrah! Tangible transport eventually turns up
Whisking us to Departures, driving
like a risk assessor’s nightmare
as time evaporates
and St Christopher has deserted us
- teasing us, throwing us a lifeline -
as we swerve speedily through check-in
- then last-minutely whipping it out of reach -
As we tag on to the end of a disconsolate queue
that wouldn’t be out of place
at Alton Towers
or T K Maxx
A tortuous, continental shift conga
shambling over to the semi-retired jobsworth
testing every suspiciously-eyed item for explosives
For cocaine
For heroin
For cannabis
For paracetamol
For my patience
which is testing positive for panic
For time is running out
and we are running out
down shiny curtain-walled corridors
lapping the crawling walkways
Then to the gate
here the immaculate check-in staff
Aare cheering our blustery faces
as if we are the last fancy-dress runners
at the London Marathon
Crossing the finish line.
Niko’s Bus
One hot day, much like the others
When the sun was molten
We got on Niko’s bus, built in the 50s
All cream and chrome and curves
From the boiling town back
To the boiling coast
With cool air that fell slowly
Like an afterthought from
Overhead Bakelite bulbs
This was Niko’s bus
But he was not the driver
Who greeted him, along with
Everyone else, who laughed and
Nodded as, with a vaudevillian flourish
He extracted a battered red alarm clock
From the top pocket of his
Lumberjack shirt, wound it up,
Checked the time, the alarm
Popped it back in his top pocket
Promptly fell asleep
It was a surprisingly loud alarm
Made everyone jump, then laugh
And Niko was roused from his nap
A couple of bends before his stop
The driver honked the bus horn
To let Niko’s mother know her son
Would soon be walking up the path
We stayed on Niko’s bus
Until we got to the boiling coast
And we drank ice cold beers
On the beach, and watched
Fishermen’s cats, sitting on the quay
Waiting for their tea to arrive.
El Peine del Viento
Seagull, moved by art
Paints guano streaks on iron
Rust bleeds onto rock
El Peine del Viento, sculpture in iron, by Eduardo Chillida & Luis Peña Ganchegui, San Sebastián, 1975.
The View
If we knew where our house was
we could see it from here
This vantage point
is not so high
that there is no oxygen
But the view from here is still
breathtaking