I’ve been lucky enough to travel to some pretty interesting destinations over the course of my life so far. Here are some posts from some of the more memorable places I’ve visited.
The last time a poem of mine appeared in a journal was back in 2013. But in the intervening years, the dim flame of my poetic muse has been sustained by the appearance of some of my published poems in a number of anthologies.
Suddenly, these old poems have a new agency. They just “hit differently” the second (or sometimes even third!) time around. Sure, there’s only five of them, but that’s, like, one every two years. And in the absence of any other kind of engagement with the publishing space, I’ll take those odds.
It’s been a long time between blog posts, I know. But what better way to break that drought than by posting about my recent trip to the Republic of Ireland?
Returning to Ireland after an 18-year absence was both emotional and rewarding. The first time I visited, in 2005, I was at the beginning of what proved to be a life-changing world trip taking in North America, Europe and East Asia.
But my initial plan on this trip was more modest: to discover my family’s origins in County Clare on the island’s west coast and then see what happened after that.
Go back to Basi: get
silly fresh.
Tidy your hair: check
that every memory you recall
is actually yours.
You may not get another chance
to protest at the passing of time
with such rigour.
In Basi, all men wear shoulder pads.
Hoaxes are committed on a daily basis.
Don't be worried,
over-confident or fooled -
you have already been defrauded.
Smell the long wisps of a lie,
coiled in the air
just above your identification badge.
Walk the streets and cross yourself
off wanted lists.
Graffiti is encouraged here.
Custom dictates that women be served first,
whether in a restaurant
or a bureaucratic exam.
Water pipes dispense a strange liquor.
Bathing in this yellowish gooze
is said to ward off many ailments.
Those who make these claims
are also said to be
in the employ of one company
or another.
Did you forget your satchel?
How, then, do you expect
to gain entrance to our gentleman's club?
You will spend the next four hours
in a cheap and dilapidated hof,
throwing peanuts at the walls and
lining up to urinate
in a closet half your size.
Don't even think of initiating a bowel movement.
Poetry evenings, while abounding,
suffer from syrupy background music during the recitals.
You will one day experience
the sad fate of mis-recognising
your own words, pumped out of a loudspeaker,
their meaning changed by
the simple juxtaposition of violins
or piano with your original intent.
In this city, no one is allowed to clap hands.
To do so would be to violate an unwritten law.
You may sleep, but only under the neon moon.
The weather is surprisingly mild
at this time of year.
The mopeds barely disturb the people's sleep
but their dreams - ah!
If only you could see them!
When morning comes,
be sure to keep a map beside you.
Reassure your nocturnal half that
Basi is real.
Just like the obscure system of
pressure points said to lead
to that oh-so-ordinary city, that
of the smile.
My flight had been delayed by an awkward incident during a brief stopover in Z—. One of the passengers — an older man in a crumpled suit — had been pulled from the boarding queue. Two persons, who did not look as if they belonged to airport security, searched the man’s carry-on luggage.
From my place in the queue I observed him as they pulled out first a newspaper and then what could have been a paperback novel. The man in the suit did not flinch.
The book had a green matte cover with gold lettering in a language I did not recognise. As the official flicked through its pages I could see that it was unread, brand new.
A sales receipt fell onto the floor of the terminal building. The man in the crumpled suit noticed this but the official did not (and his colleague was busy calling the incident in on her mobile telephone, in any case). Presently, they led the man away.
As our ageing Bombardier turboprop banked and turned over the marble mountaintops, I marvelled at my own audacity: I had slipped the receipt between the pages of my debut poetry collection, somehow certain that both it and the unreadable message scrawled on its reverse side would be safe from harm once I arrived in the Republic.
The old Sankt Olof Express puffing away at the Brösarp railway station in Skåne, Sweden.
No sounds, except the wind in the pine trees. Is the train even coming? How will I know? Should I crouch down, put my ear to the tracks and listen? I’ve seen countless people do this in movies but never believed in it until now.
Then I hear a high-pitched whistle. And the chug-a-chug of the steam train’s engine. Yep, that’s it, I think. That’s the Ångtåget på Österlen I saw 15 minutes ago at Brösarp Station, about to depart for Sankt Olof. And now it’s headed this way.
I cross the tracks, alight from my bicycle and lean it against the fence. Then I pull out my mobile telephone and open its native camera application.
Holding the phone in front of my face with both hands, I turn to landscape view. My eyes train on the screen, in which I see the still-empty railway track and the cutting and the pine forest. Patches of blue in the overcast sky.
At last, sensing that the train is about to round the bend, I press record.
The opening frame from my epic video of a train bawling round a bend just outside Brösarp in the Österlen region of Skåne, Sweden.
The spectacle that unfolds on the screen in my hands is nothing short of mind-blowing.
As I stand there spellbound, the old steam train comes barrelling around the bend in full cry. Its funnel jettisons smoke into the sky with majestic power. Its black fuselage tears through the cutting. Its whistle howls like a banshee.
Within seconds it’s past me, its packed carriages hurtling by. I swing around to capture the caboose disappear around the bend.
Within that brief period—twenty seconds, no more—an array of thoughts flit through my mind.
I think about Paul Theroux’s journey in The Old Patagonian Express. About his maddening companion, Thornberry. I think about Baudrillard’s concept of the simulacrum. I think about my four-year-old son, and wish he was here with me to watch the train careening past.
And I think about my bike trip through Osterlen, which I am about to complete.
Once the train is definitely gone, I press the button on the screen once more to end the video. As I do so, a thrill runs through my body.
I have created a masterpiece of amateur cinematography, that much at least is certain. I will show the clip to my son and he will be awestruck. I shall post it to various social media services and then sit back as the torrent of likes and comments come in.
But as I press the screen, I hear a click. It is the sound my device usually makes when I’ve taken a photo.
That’s when I realise I haven’t filmed the train bawling through the cutting at all.
In fact, I’d pressed the button at the beginning and taken a photo. (I hadn’t heard the click that first time, in the bedlam of the train’s approach). I’d then panned around and taken an imaginary video. And then I’d taken another photo once the action was over.
You can just make out the puffs of steam coming from the engine of the steam train that passed by this very spot. One second ago.
It would be too easy to think of this non-event as an indicator of the mindlessness of modern-day tourism.
I do indeed take a moment or two to reflect on my utter stupidity as I stare in turn at the two photos I had taken. They aren’t bad photos, by any means.
But neither of them features a train. Not to mention a mighty, old-fashioned steam engine. Spewing black smoke as it carves its way through a primeval Swedish forest.
Then I think of my son and feel a familiar wave of self-pity, tinged with self-hatred. A heady combo, that one. A kind of depression-induced cocktail I’d imbibed for over 30 years. (I’d actually stopped drinking more than a year before the day in question. But I still recognised the emotions that coursed through me back then.)
You (adj.) idiot! Time for a drink or six, eh?After three drinks, you can post those two photos on Instagram anyway. And to (sheol) with trains.
—My former (dispomaniac) self.
Yeah, that didn’t happen.
Instead, I ride the final two kilometres back to the village of Ravlunda, where I’d first hired the bike. Then I make my way back to Stockholm.
That homeward journey by bus and train takes around eight hours. By the end of it, I’ve almost forgotten my attempt at cinematography.
But I’d be lying if I said it spoilt my trip. If anything, that imaginary video made my four days in Österlen something special.
