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In A Strange Land
Passports :- Baggage :- Arrivals. And it’s bedlam!
A melée like a field of medieval battle,
shoving, shouting, scuffling,
the announcements and all the signs completely baffling,
and only this thought consoles:
that somewhere this pandemonium conceals
a chauffeur trying to be heard
and a well-dressed aide with a clear head.
Where are they though? Ten minutes. Thirty.
Only the hustlers remain, grabbing and hissing out “Taxi?”
… pitched on the bank of a river where the adult males
are fidgeting with spears … guarding a train of mules
through a strange bazaar … bringing the caravel
into a bay to be met by prowling canoes …
and they know (regressing to childhood prayer),
they know that they’re quarry, they’re prey.
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© John Stevens 2013
This is the second of a sequence of poems called The Silk Road which began with the previous post, “Frequent Flyers”.
Further verse vignettes are to come (I’ve therefore turned off comments for the time being to save my customary friends and readers from feeling that they must say something).
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