A Day In Our Life Over There - An Inconsequential Poem

We travel oddly, my son and I.
Pick country, cheap airfare, and rent-a-car.
EZ Pack: one for wash, wear, spare. Mostly.
Direction? Clockwise or not, depending.
Lost again? He decides. Elbows cross.
Fingers point both directions and we go.
No goals, nocall-aheads, hardly. Schmooze.
Find: Standing stones. Vikings. Crusades.
Castles. Family graves. Silent loud stories.
Rules: Ferry sign? Take it. Orkney, 5 A.M.
Sing the towns in songs. Fair Citee. Gra- nah-dah!
Volcano up close. El Greco hands. Bulls run.
Menu mystery: Pick the sixth. Bulls' ears?
And here lies the heart of Robert the Bruce.
Where is the rest? Fill in the gaps.
Personal best: Watch one parent, one child,
Now two adults. Joint venture.
Up-looking re-education with my Down son
Who is always Up. Hey, man. Who are we?
We are the Car-Dan Tour Company.
We master airports.
Thinking in the car.
Log on lap. Pencil.
My line of work ill-chosen for my kind.
A maze, unknowable turnings
With no-one at rest. Waiting for an outcome
From choices made, or found in the wood.
Who chose?
You get away, you think back.
Like after the push
When I went down the street.
Intentionally thrust
By the alien children
Abrupt, when I was four, and new
In the neighborhood.
Thought that long forgotten.
Right off the concrete stairs
Of the new addition.
They were silent after.
And my fingers sticky red running home.
The pitch. Again, there. Loud in its waiting.
The tolling. Ears ring ever after.
The mirror and the office.
Where the place.
All turnings. The mosaic reheaves.
Prom ball. Worldwide.
A technicolor ferris.
Fine ride. Next flight.


More blogs about Common Thread Road Ways.

Games and sports - Chess and Soccer

Amsterdam, street chess, NL
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Street chess, life-sized, Amsterdam.

Salzburg street chess, Austria

Cetinje, Montenegro; soccer players
Soccer game in a city park, Cetinje, Montenegro, at left.

These boys stopped their game to help us find a hotel and their English was remarkably good. All had on American-logo shirts.
;
Tried to locate them afterwards to get them copies of their picture, but no answers from either the US consulate or the Cetinje school system.




Sandlot soccer, Amsterdam, NL
Sandlot soccer, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, at left.

A whole city block is cleared and fenced in, and sand piled in.
Dubrovnik, Croatia, street soccer




Street soccer, Dubrovnik, Croatia, at left.