#1008 - travel

 

10.x.22

1008

3.282

travel

(read this before setting off again)

 

you pay a fortune for this claustrophobia

it’s everywhere too, wide world you’ve known

 

trip over, you lose things

there are other things you won’t find

 

and who’s to understand you?

there’s no reception here

 

but the wheel of death spins

world in itself

 

so little familiar, you’re no one

in a general way the needs are known

 

but it’s too weak too hot

too strong too cold

 

the volume is astounding

but little made out

 

everyone you pass has a cough

may filch     faded glories! 

 

the past is everywhere

and this is where we’re from

 

but here but now

deprive yourself of every comfort

 

in favour of someone else’s custom

flush rising till and take this pill

 

you could be coming down with

but so much out to see you must

 

think of a caravan

cram the overcrammed family in

 

or go like a snail so often

hauling along the old peasant bundle

 

and up this step, down those

bump, drag on the wounded limbs

 

remember you’re here to enjoy yourself

that is why we queue, mask up  

 

entertains doubts

as to who you might be

 

it’s all for the love of elsewhere

or other fond illusion, tricks

 

meet anger, grief, complacency

each in another language

 

foreignness relentless

not least of which your own

 

you look into a mirror

the mirror is gone

 

this is to get that longing

under which weather we go

 

see the world and still know better

feel like a wreck

 

come home