Speccie: In a Jam
 

Well blow me down. I submitted FOUR dashed poems this time and not even an Hon Mensh. However, the winners were exceptionally good, Bazza and Bill as usual up with the field. Hope springs eternal, does it not, Sphereans? The new competition is not only a beezer, but I actually have a poem already. I wrote it four years ago when I was taking my daughter to this godforsaken place every weekday for ten weeks (a hospital placement). Actually, there are now TWO bridges so the hold-ups don't happen. But they did. They did. The poem has been into many competitions and been runner-up a couple of times. Let's see if we can have a win. Oh, and you lot, let's see if you can have wins too.

No. 2662: In a jam
You are invited to submit a poem composed in the midst of a travel hold-up (16 lines maximum). Entries should be submitted by email, where possible, to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 25 August.

Sheppey Bridge.

We’re crawling, nose-to-tail, to what must be
The bridge. This place is featureless and flat,
No trees, no houses, bugger all to see
Except the bridge and there’s a lot of that.
A siren wails enough to wake the dead,
A funnel slides along, the bridge goes up,
The traffic stops. We stop. All lights are red.
A solitary heron’s slow flip-flap
From west to east and then from east to west
Stops Time. Round here that happens quite a lot.
The siren wails again, the bridge goes down,
A dozen lorries trundle to the town,
Then Holland, Istanbul and Bucharest.
It ought to be romantic but it’s not.

jam today
 

Four, John? Suffering Jesus, I can barely write one by the deadline. I guess the most familiar association here is the traffic jam (bottleneck, gridlock, tailback, whatever), but note that 'travel hold-up' offers a lot of scope. I could tell you tales of delay & frustration at Barcelona airport when Iberia pilots were working to rule, four hours of hell waiting for an Easyjet flight at Liverpool long before it was John Lennon, a shed crammed with aggressive, drunken, chain-smoking scousers (& that was only the women)...

Well, to tell you the truth, Bazza, I didn't write three of them for the competition. I just changed their titles to the title of a book. Which, perhaps, is why they weren't quite what was wanted. And when I think of it I have a good 24 line poem about airports. I reckon I could doctor it. The thing about delays in airports is, if you are frightened of flying, as I am, then a part of you doesn't WANT the aircraft to arrive. And if you are flying by the Greek of the Irishman, that could very easily happen. Actually it's not the flying, is it? It's the taking off and landing.

fear & loathing
 

Not to mention the general atmosphere of paranoia involved in air travel.

********************************

So, Don, going up you would be burned to death, but going down you would simply be smashed to smithereens. Shelley Berman, years ago, said it al. Which won't prevent me saying it again.

I take it, Don, you have never flown by Ryanair. No, I thought not. Ryan (the living proof that not all Irishmen are charming) is thinking of ripping out the seats and making us stand for short haul flights.

Rep’s Rondeaubout

Traffic jams are so much fun—
better far than boring meetings.
Get the week’s expense claim done!
Phone a friend with cheery greetings!
Never worry when you’re late—
fast lane life won’t take you far.
Some things are in league with fate—
traffic jams are.

John,
You're not confusing Michael Ryan, the Hungerford massacre monster, with Michael O'Leary, Ryanair boss, are you?

It was O'Leary who once summed up the 'no frills' airline (which, incidentally, in terms of profit and passenger air miles, is now the biggest in the world) in his own broad Irish, inimitable way: "It's just a fucking taxi!"
Even so, I've never had to stand up in a taxi.

**********************

Yes, Jayne, it's O'Leary I mean. It was the name Ryanair that threw me. No, Don, I've never flown in the fellow's planes. I go by the fat Greek, though actually Stelios is a Cypriot and anyway he doesn't own the airline any more. That's Easyjet, known by the passengers as Squeezyjet. It's lucky I have short legs. The BEST airline I ever went by was an American job that took me to Texas. Great people. The pilot looked just like Wild Bill Hickock.

hands off
 

These days I find actually flying is the least of it. I seem to have the kind of face that attracts suspicion from the steroid-abusing bouncers, groping perverts & toxic little Hitlers who constitute airport security. I've not had my prostate felt by them yet, but feeling that it's only a matter of time I've virtually discontinued air travel. Fortunately I only visit western Europe these days, so it's no big sacrifice.

I have only flown two or three times. For work, and with someone else paying. I was once sent on a bucketshop flight to teach in foreign parts and was terrified. It didn't help that I was flying to Crete, location of the first-ever air disaster. I decided, high above the ruins of Knossos, that I'm not in the least afraid of flying. I'm afraid of falling.

That would be Icarus syndrome, Ann. Oh I forgot to say, nice one David. Here's an airport one.

In a Jam

We’re booked to go by Squalidair.
The plane (you’ve guessed it) isn’t there
For hours and hours and God knows why.
Without a plane we cannot fly.

I love a ship, a train, a car.
I cannot love a winged cigar,
Plus passport/ticket/visa crap,
Plus baggage magicked off the map,

Nor yet the deserts we have made
Where aeroplanes can ply their trade:
The tacky bars, the pricey shops,
The toilets blocked with horrid slops,

The queues that snake from here to here,
The smell of sweat, the stink of fear,
The fear we do not care to name,
Of crashing in a sheet of flame.

bullseye!
 

That pretty much says it all, John.

Wow, John, that's a doozy.

APOLOGY

I'm sorry that I missed your bash.
I truly meant to come.
First the bus did not arrive,
so I stuck out my thumb

and stood beside the road all day
in hopes that car or truck
would kindly offer me a lift.
It turns out, no such luck.

I went back home and grabbed my bike.
Alas, the chain was busted.
My car was in the body shop.
My motorcycle? Rusted.

I really meant it when I said
I'd come, when we last talked,
and since you live next door to me,
I guess I should have walked.

Bob, that's absolutely hilarious. :D

Thanks, Martin!


TRAVEL HOLD-UP

The passengers were seated.
We rolled out from the gate.
Our plane was next for take-off.
For once, we were not late.

The Spectator was laid out
to be read upon my lap.
That dreadful "Competition"
always helps me with my nap.

But all at once my cellphone,
which was actually my son's,
began to blare a rap song
whose refrain was "bombs and guns."

The officers had questions.
By the end, they didn't doubt me,
but when at last I was released,
the plane had left without me.

confucius say hold-ups not always bad
 

When trains are late you wait. There is no choice.
At home you get the ranting Tannoy's voice
forbidding this and that, the Coke machine,
the platform staff's routine dyspeptic mien,
the sodden toilet and that sullen air –
so very Brit – of muttering despair....
The bats are out, a swooping crew. At noon,
chewing my trail mix by a salt lagoon,
I viewed a plankton-tinted chorus line –
those miracles of elegant design,
flamingos. Them, the quiet delta, me;
I savour the recalled epiphany
over a Fundador and a cigar,
the cheerful uproar of the station bar
my comfort zone. The Sitges train is late
by – ooh, at least an hour now. I can wait.

That, Bazza, is a poem.

ta muchly, john
 

I suddenly remembered this occasion when we were waiting for a delayed train in Spain, were on the verge of moping, when we realised the station cantina was open & the joint was jumpin'.

John, in our house it's referred to as Sleazyjet.

Ann, you need not fear falling thirty thousand feet - it's only the last two inches that do all the damage! :)

I love flying - it's all the airport grief I can't stand. I was once made to remove a metal clip that was holding up my hair, and had to put it in my suitcase... I was going to hijack the plane with that hairclip, dammit, but was thwarted. How frustrating!

phobia
 

Thank you all, especially Don and Jayne, for easing my fears of flying.:D I'd stand at the Security check point pulling out hundreds of hair clips if it meant never having to set foot on the plane.

I'm with Ann. It's neither the crash landing, nor the burning I fear. It's the 5-minute, anticipatory, nausea-inducing fall from the sky which sounds hideous to me. If I'm going to be exploded into a million burning pieces, I'd rather not have time to think about it right before it happens. I guess that means my vote is for the take-off crash.

A wee tip-ette, just for Stephenie. A friend of mine was taken aside at Milan Malpensa airport and accused of having a firearm in her hand luggage. It turned out to be a pre-moistened ladies' requisite in a foil packet, the top third of which had become folded at forty-five degrees. Worth a try?

A try at what, Ann? Breaking into the cockpit and shoving it down the pilot's throat to suffocate him? Malpensa indeed! :-) If that means what I think it means.

Laughing!
 

Thank you, Ann. Absolutely worth a try, and much more interesting than hair pins. I'll never fly without one, now. If nothing else, it should make the fall much more exciting.

We must not obscure the general truth that travelling about is dangerous. Even if you walk there you will probably be set upon by felons and robbed. The best thing is to STAY WHERE YOU ARE. Why not? I like it here. Travel narrows the mind.

Isaac Asimov did not like to travel, either -- except in his amazing imagination.

Neither did Philip Larkin. When asked if he would like to see the Great Wall of China he said, 'Yes. If I could come back in the afternoon.' I'm not against travelling to see SOMEONE. It's travelling to see STUFF I can't abide. I've seen all the stuff I want. As for travelling to lie on a beach.... you have to be joking.

They ain't gonna sivilise me...
 

Well now the topic has been broadened, how about the classic American journey, from Huck Finn via Easy Rider to Thelma & Louise, the one without a fixed destination or telos, that is both escape & self-seeking?

Express Shuttle

Driver, drive faster, don't leave it to fate!
My flight is on schedule and we're running late.

"Just one of those days." You are stoic, resigned
As the shuttle sits snarled in the rush hour grind.

You missed your alarm. The wife yelled at you.
Then the boss called, and you answered, "Who?"

Lost on your first route and lost on your second,
We'd only be late a half hour, you reckoned.

You rushed to the Hilton through empty back streets,
Then called me. Where was I? At Embassy Suites.

Now signs on the freeway are flashing delays.
We sit without moving. "Just one of those days."

Driver, drive faster, if you want a tip,
Planes are on time when you're late for the trip.

The City’s Infamous Traffic

You go one mile per hour down the street,
trying to get across this town to meet
the people who will hear your big audition,
but now the traffic’s your main competition.

Today it is the worst it’s ever been.
The odds you’ll be on time are pretty thin.
Do to the laziness of the Commission,
right now the traffic’s your main competition.

You sit there listening to the radio
informing you the traffic is as slow
as turtles in the muck. You’re stuck and wishin’
this traffic wouldn’t be such competition.

When, finally you’re there, the door is locked.
Yet why would you be even slightly shocked?
Did you not drive your car of your own volition,
knowing full well there would be competition?

I wonder why we came this way;
it’s not the route that I would take.
Is there a demo on today
or something? We can’t even make
a U-turn; we’re completely stuck.
I’ll never make it to the church
by two o’clock. It’s just my luck!
He’ll think I’ve left him in the lurch.

My father hasn’t said a word.
(And is he trying to hide a smile?)
I’m certain that he’d have preferred
his golf, to walking down the aisle.
He can’t have engineered this, though,
which makes me think it must be Fate.
I did have doubts... I think I know
what I must do: procrastinate.

Good one, Jayne.

Your Gig

You’re stuck in gridlock, wondering
if you will make it to your gig.
You’re wedged between a giant rig
and van. Now raindrops start to ping

against the roof. You will be late.
The show will have to start without you.
There isn’t any other route. You
leave your useless car and, straight

towards the venue, run like mad.
Nine blocks to go, you’re quite aware
the strung-out line of traffic there
(Chevy, Buick, Honda, Cad)

conveys your loyal, loving fans.
All wet, you walk into the west
and head back home. It’s for the best.
There are a jillian other bands!

Ain't it the truth?
 

"Every time, the same old crap!
Why couldn't you have brought a map?
You must have missed the exit! Damn!
And now we're in a traffic jam!
You should have stopped an hour ago
to get directions. But, oh no!
I swear to God! Men are pathetic!"
"I know, dear. (sigh) Yes, it's genetic."