Posted in Poetry, Travel, Travel Writing, tagged Air travel, Airplanes, Fiji, light aircaft, Pacific Islands, Suva on 31/12/2011| 2 Comments »
35. Fiji (Suva Airport)
The ultimate test of self-esteem, surely, is being weighed along with your luggage at the airline check-in for the tiny island hopper. The dubious eyes of the clerk size you up and tally your aggregate heft, eyebrows raised.
A momentary dread: will it be you or the goat off-loaded today?
jpm
Posted in Poetry, Travel, Travel Writing, tagged Austria, backpacking, Poetry, trains, Travel, Travel writing on 22/12/2011| 4 Comments »
34. Austria
Clickety Clack
Orderly Austria flashes past.
Suffocatingly precise.
Oh for some fresh air.
I pry a reluctant window open just a fraction.
In an apparently personal affront to the severe man glaring at me from afar.
Who storms thunderously through the carriage to slam it shut in my face.
Twice.
jpm
Posted in Poetry, Travel, Travel Writing, tagged Budapest, Hungary, Poetry, Public Baths, Spas, Travel, Travel writing on 14/12/2011| 1 Comment »
33. Hungary (Budapest, 1990)
Rubbery, flubbery, lubbery bellies
Peeking through the clouds of steam in immodest abandon.
It’s Women’s Tuesday in the Rudas Baths,
Nestled at the foot of the castle.
And ruddy-faced, barrel-shaped matrons pass gossip and time in the public baths
as they always have.
An hour’s respite from their daily cares.
jpm
(posted from Waiheke Island, New Zealand)
Posted in Poetry, Travel, Travel Writing, tagged backpacking, Cold War, Czechoslovakia, Poetry, punks, Solvakia, Travel on 09/12/2011| Leave a Comment »
Košice Town Square.
Safety pinned and superglued,
the sneering punk sprawls his scrawny self beside me on the bench,
radiating a loose-limbed exuberance
at odds with his steel capped boots.
An outpost of desperate wannabe anarchy
amidst Cold War Communist conformism.
Thirsting for my corrupting tales of the Wicked West.
jpm
50 words for 50 countries 