what unites us is
that we’re all budget flyers &
Barcelona airport has a terminal
where only easyJet departs,
discuss our
CO2 to thousand footprints or
environmental consciousness,
but they’re creating jobs,
& more than i assumed,
a french couple with baby & toddler
spills a glass of sprite across the floor,
i wanna help them clean it up,
but a madly banging headache
breaKs & spliTs
my brain in tiny bits, so
i don’t move,
and no one else does–
silently, we slice the air
with gazes that mean nothing–
hung between the home
and where we head or come from
“Please proceed to gate numBer eleven–”
a group of students plays football in the boarding line
as we wait forever & i read Bukowski
while my head goes banG– bAnG–
bad as it can get
when we fly over Marseille, Cote d’Azur,
Montblanc– i start
thinking about how it feels
to work my fingers up your spine
as you bow over me, sweat drip_
ping slowly from your forehead & small crumbs
of travel dust caught in the soft curve
on your lips– i find you
at arrival,
playing pinball (some things
never change), crash
amidst the flashing, buzzer’s,
tchrk– tsh–plingk–ttssrhk
in your arms, &
pressed against your chest,
i say “hurry up,
we need to get home really quickly–”
.
it’s OpenLinkNight again where we get drunk on verse and fly without boarding a plane..and Joe Hesch will be the man behind the dVerse bar tonight
This was great Cladia. Really started to fall into place for me from the french couple and later. Loved the whole rest of the poem.
Ugh, sorry *Claudia
Hey, Girl!
Photo at top of my post is stained glass from Cathedral in Barcelona, the one that’s been building for so many (160?) years, and still not completed!
Anyway, back on topic. I usually know there’s cominf some passionate thought/behaviors in your workl. So now i read from the ottom up–hope you don’t mind. Then I read it straight. Love your in-flight discourse (and on the concourse?), but the LAST (which was FIRST for me…is the best. “We need to get home. NOW!
You’re like a puppy who cannot wait for dinner!
LOVE IT!
PEACE!
Wow, I am impressed that you read Bukowski in the airport. At least it was only Sprite that was spilled. It could have been red wine! It is always nice to come home and be met by someone you care about, isn’t it, even if someone plays pinball. I would guess pinball was put on the ‘back burner’ relatively quickly! I enjoyed your write.
Claudia, ultimate respect here: You are able to read during a headache. Glad you’re home safe, and that last clinch was… the clincher! Way to put chaos, migraines, and passion all together in a great poem, my dear. Welcome home, indeed, wink! Amy
http://sharplittlepencil.com/2012/06/18/an-honor-plus-a-poem-passionate/
… I can feel every second of this poem …and more … this delicious, C …
Ah those days of airport hopping. Remember them well. Really nice imagery here, transitioning perfectly between stanzas. The slice the air stanza is dead on, totally know that scene. The sounds are incorporated really nicely too, got a kick out of the pinball one, as it really does read as it sounds. Great write. Thanks
i love and hate airports. they are such strange places, and all of us stuck inside are a very strange congregation…
i always feel like writing in air-ports, almost never can – it is too “un-real”
now there is a great welcome home…smiles…glad the headache went away….being a people watcher, really enjoyed all the sights around the airport, you built the scene well and i think i started a bit of a headache myself…great use of language as well, “we slice air” with our gazes….cool write C
Welcome home…it’s good to go away and good to come back… Sorry about your headache
Nice write, Claudia .
Ha! I assume your headache was gone by then, eh?
“silently, we slice the air
with gazes that mean nothing–
hung between the home
and where we head or come from”
been there a few times without even hanging at an airport!
Wow Claudia, you certainly captured that elevator phenomena of flying with a crowd but pretending not to see anyone. Nice switch of tone too, closer to home visions of love…nice!
I didn’t expect to go THERE.
We are all budget flyers with banging heads and pinball bumps and bings wanting that easyJet home. Aren’t we though, aren’t we?
Great to be travelling despite headaches and spilled sprites! These are part of the joys of being mobile and having the ability to move. Great write Claudia!
Hank
You include so many feelings and observations common to many of our trips. Never had such a bad headache, but got awfully sick during a flight once. And yes, that yearning for familiar arms, and home – I remember it well.
Hope your headache is gone. And though you had a good time in Spain, I know you’re glad to be home.
As always, enjoyed your unique style of capturing moments.
An absolutely wonderful vignette. There’s a perfect mix of action and detail which makes this like a great, sexy 5 minute movie. Loved it.
Pingback: leaving footPrints– « thebleedingpen
Amazing Claudia! And while I’m a true advocate for change…I can also appreciate the little things that don’t.
Glad you are home and hope you are feeling better..this has changed my view of airports and travel forever..most enjoyable.
You showed the way so effectively of what we humans tend to do over the spilled sprite, and most other things, we all tend to turn a blind eye unless we really do feel we can help. As for the headache, it sounds as if the cure was right there waiting for you
Lovely read.
I’m sure the headache was forgotten upon landing.
Very sweet poem, Claudia, wonderfully paced; brings us into the moment (even a bit of the headache) and the relief. k.
Ah, rushing home…
Perhaps a hot cup of coffee at home, or a shot of tequila at the bar might have helped that headache to vanish?
Nice poem, Claudia.. the first two lines,
what unites us is
that we’re all budget flyers
still remained in my mind as I finished reading…
A lovely, tender write…I could picture the scene…you make them come alive with your poetry…..much enjoyed, Claudia…
In your words, the commonplace becomes rare, the ordinary provides urgency, out of throbbing headache — a love song.
I love the way the ennui of airports metamorphoses into passion!
all beauty and patience is lost in pain…and time seems eternally still…home..just get me home – i feel your need to know it…bkm
You recreate the atmosphere of the airport so perfectly and damned if I couldn’t feel that headache!
I know that headache feeling… I love the way you brought it to life here, the need for that release, that comfort, and the images you paint with your words are always so precisely beautiful. (Hope the headache has moved on by now).
Such a travel might make one unravel as that headache surely can come from it with ease, but when you get where you want to be things surely start to please.
“quickly”… love this, Claudia. there is no place on earth like an airport. and as strangely dissimilar as they are from each other, they all enslave those waiting to constant gate announcements, slices of life human, and the truly piquant need to GO NOW. very enjoyable. ~jane
Best cure for a headache in the world. ;_) Lovely and immediate writing, vivid sense of place, and all your usual feel for people and color.
I could really feel that headache… and funnily enough one of the best cures I know for a headache was waiting for you when you landed…. ahem, you are saucy Claudia!
From the banging sounds of the pinball machine to the banging sounds of…
And also #2 at dverse! YAY! But now I’ll wonder if your sex was than Brian’s, heh heh heh, did you read his at dverse? Amy
http://sharplittlepencil.com/2012/06/14/we-interrupt-your-regularly-scheduled-programming/
Great writing and a new and novel way to cure a migraine that is for sure!
Nice capture of the scenes at the airport ~ How awful to have a headache but I am sure its been kissed away ~ Coming home sure has its rewards and perks ~
love the immediacy of this, as I journeyed through the events aware of your throbbing headache – reading Bokowsky would have been a great diversion but the one the best was that which came at the end as you fell into welcoming arms and chest – thankyou for sharing this Claudia and all the flavors, ups and downs at the airport – when I read this line ‘a french couple with baby & toddler
spills a glass of sprite across the floor’, reminded once of my cousin relating a journey with small children and not having any food, to feed their hunger (running out) after being detained fraught with holdups and all but a passenger in front was eating a huge cake and one of the littlies unbeknown to my cousin, must have spied it and reached over and helped themselves, to the gasps of a shocked onlooker deprived of his cake – she was mortified – Hugs Lib
Really like your line breaks (I get obsessed with line breaks) and the capitalisation… I’ve never seen that work so well until I saw this…. Very cool and very audio, if that makes sense. Love it.
What vivid moments you painted, Claudia! The ending was such a nice surprise… I absolutely love the sensuality that was brought in to close this wonderful poem. This needs to be shared.
Nice Claudia! But now I have a headache! (Sherry ain’t buyin it.) Very vivid write!
Wonderful! The terminal was described to perfection and your arrival couldn’t have been more beautifully expressed.
To be able concatenate a migraine and expressive sensuality in one poem is nothing short of a massive achievement, not to mention co-locating that with airports, loudspeakers and toddlers. Brilliant!
To be home with the one you love is the only cure I know for those travel headaches…another wonderful snapshot of a day… expressed as only you can.
Aeroplane air always give me a headache. I don’t like the feeling and you wrote it so vividly, or else it’s because I can empathize. Shape and capitalization sprinkled lend their effect. Nicely done.
you kind of lull the reader still and then shift gears. i love that transition you make.
silently, we slice the air
with gazes that mean nothing– lovin these line and as always the pictures you paint with words… who needs instagram
Love your word painting of the airport scene, Claudia. These days, we all need the savings we can get – Even mega rich investors. So yeah, budgeting is one thing that unites us all right now.
Hope the comment went through
Out of the headaches of travel connections, you now are anxious to make that human connection at the end at the safe harbor…home. I was right there with you, Claudia. Your travelogues are a great journies to foreign places and to your heart andsoul. Thank you!
You absolutely nailed this Claudia! Just superb!
Loved this Claudia. Those headaches will split the heavens at times. The sensuality in your words is always welcome, as it brings us to our senses where the power of passion and love overpowers social objectivization and alienation.
“gazes that mean nothing” exactly it! And bang, bang with Bukowski great line–fun poem– though the headache’s certainly not–you’ve taken us with you on board.
Sigh…this reminds me of what I’m missing … on a day that is today.
x
A true journey …
I love the way you paint the ordinary day with colors of reality. You are a gem.
only one cure for a headache Claudia..and you seem to have found it..
Liked the script you wrote along the way..the movie rolling… feel like this is a trailer, certainly cuts right in, right out, but full colour scenes unfolding under the camera’s gaze. The family who spilt their sprite…
Great poem. I love the longing expressed. I just adore this stanza:
“silently, we slice the air
with gazes that mean nothing–
hung between the home
and where we head or come from”
and I find it sort of fitting that you were reading Bukowski while you had a headache – I like Bukowski, but just the fact that he’s so gritty makes me think it’s fitting.
Was that because of the airline food?:)
Claudia, you write some of the best poetic narrative I’ve read. I’m captured by your writing, and this poem is just fantastic. The anchor to me in this poem is the “headache.” It’s the nexus that keeps everything tightly woven into a painful moment in life. Sweet work by one of my favorite poems. Bravo!
agreed with Hedgewitch~ wonderful immediate writing. enjoyed!
Hands up,I have to give it to I did feel as if I was in some sort of foreign film.With sub titles and exotic voices speaking. Yet< i identifie with them as I feel what that go through every reel of the way. Good job
I love how you incorporated the greater and human perspective and the human need for comfort and shedding the rest of our existence. Lovely Claudia!
this is signature claudia! wherever you start, you find passion along the way. LOVE this! {though sorry you had a headache.}
♥
First off, love ‘jaywalking on the moon’.
Then, really enjoyed this…adult, poised, chunk to mull on and savour.
Have you seen George Clooney in this;
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1193138/
It’s like you wrote the script!
very very nice
David in Maine USA