A GOOSE IN THE BAMBOO
Catching a charter flight from Manchester,
the family eases through security
but I am detained – there are traces
of explosive in my backpack: poems
on the hard drive? The scanner is at fault.
At Nikos Kazantzakis Heraklion –
the only airport named for a writer –
one of our cases arrives broken
on the single baggage carousel
and one of the gent’s toilets has backed up
but ‘Zorba’s Dance’ is playing somewhere,
the sea beyond the runways could be almost
‘wine-dark’ and the oven heat warms old bones.
Our hotel room overlooks a valley
charmed by Cretan sun in early June, washed
in El Greco shades and citrus colours,
with the usual eclectic small holdings
among the scrub – olives, vines, tomatoes
and bananas; hens and cock scratching;
three nanny goats clanking; two black dogs caged;
a stand of bamboo. On our balcony
with our granddaughter we play ‘I spy’
– but we cannot see the goose that honks
periodically in the bamboo
and sets the watch dogs barking.
There are activities throughout the day
round the pool for children of all ages.
It is water polo time and chaps
from England, Poland, Germany play
boisterously but amicably.
The French study their screens, a quartet
of middle aged Israeli men is aloof,
two British Asian families remain
circumspect. We came last time in early May –
the Great Patriotic Holiday
enjoyed by affluent ethnic Russians.
Our granddaughter swims endlessly like a shrimp
in the cosmopolitan waters.
At Heraklion the security
is seasonal, part-timers attired
in G4S finery complete
with white lanyards so there is role play –
queues are long and scrutiny relaxed.
At Manchester, in the EU passport queue
we shuffle along, without music,
with passengers from Islamabad
to the ID scanner – and chuckle,
thinking of all the closet racists
who would swallow their tongues in such a queue.
At the scanner, a witty, local lass
in a hijab helps us. O brave new world
that has such! ARRIVALS is threatening
with armed police, loud with distant honking.
A car has been parked in the wrong place.
We have flown from attic comedy to low
farce, goosed in the process.
Alan Horne
July 24, 2016The description of rural Crete in the third section took me back, very evocative. The idea of a travelogue poem is interesting. You have two this month.
David Selzer
July 25, 2016I had not thought of it or ‘Lenin… ‘ as travelogues but, of course, they are and I realise I write a lot of them – two examples at random: ‘Leith Hill Place, Surrey’ – https://davidselzer.com/?s=leith+hill+place – and ‘The Aqueduct’ – https://davidselzer.com/2015/11/the-aqueduct/.
Mary Clark
July 28, 2016Brilliant. The world as it is these days. And not so bad after all, since there’s always been a bit of farce and comedy, and threat of horror, in life. I loved ‘swimming like a shrimp in cosmopolitan waters.’
One possible typo: ‘Arrivals is threathening…’ but maybe not.
David Selzer
July 29, 2016Being a pedant I reflected for a time on how to present Arrivals – in single quotation marks, italicised, upper case? I also wondered about whether the verb should be singular or plural. In the end I decided it’s an entity – partly becuase there’s only one exit!
David Selzer
July 31, 2016I’ve changed Arrivals to ARRIVALS because, on yet more reflection, the grammar looks right. By chance the word now seems a tad sinister! Excellent! Thanks for the editorial help, Mary.