Homesick in Lloret de Mar
Look at the clouds, Dad, down there!
Tufts of white, pixel-clear, a 3D extravaganza.
Glug, glug, the brandy bottle behind me, like pulling a bath
plug,
Dad in a stew.
I remember the take-off,
an invisible force mauling my innards, trying to claw me back.
But now…
An anamorphic view
almost sweeping me into it like those dreams,
running and running until I rise up and up into the air,
legs peddling fruitlessly.
It was Panavision gone mad,
an overwhelming Skalescenics expanse with tiny buildings on it,
and minute humans almost glued to it, doing what they do,
tickety-boo.
If he were down there,
he would bask in the fumes of rich malt and rank tobacco,
Put your money where your mouth is, 5p.
I knew what he was feeling.
He’d refuse, of course, the buenos dias, the rank food of
foreigners,
seek out the home-from-home;
more a couped-up-in-a-tin-box type of guy,
tuned for crooners, card tricks and matchsticks,
clickety-click.
So it all passed,
the dried-up landscapes, the sangria, radios booming out Y Viva
Espana,
the porrons, the rows and rows of American Oak barrels;
we were soon up in the air again,
Always nice to be heading back home, he said,
Yakety Yak.
Terry Phillips
If you have any thoughts about this poem, Terry Phillips
would like to hear them
