Slight Return

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I've been conspicuously absent from The Mighty Pen for some time, dear readers, and I throw myself upon your mercy. I shall not hide behind my extended travel itinerary as an excuse for my pitiful output. I shall merely resume where I left off, putting things that fall a little outside the remit of my diary page. I mentioned in there today that I was taking off at the weekend for a show in Germany, and it got me thinking....The shows themselves are always wonderful, but in fact account for around 70 minutes of my time away. When you drop on a particularly unforgiving itinerary, such as this forthcoming weekend, the show becomes, to quote a friend in the business, "a minor inconvenience." When I begin to think of the 5 a.m. alarm call, the queue at check in, the interminable security procedures, my flight to Hannover my FOUR trains to the eventual location of the gig, an overnight in a hotel, my SIX trains from the gig across Germany to Dusseldorf, it is small wonder that my eyelids grow heavy before I even step on a plane. So I thought I would try and illustrate the thoughts that go through my mind when I leave home on a weekend like this, by using a poem that I wrote sat in Manchester Airport at 5 a.m. on the 17th June last year, waiting to come home. It's called:

5 O'Clock Shadow

Bone-weary
Traversed,the night,
With scant regard for sleep
Appointment with a metal tube to keep

To hurl me through the air
Commune with Gods
To head for home
And weather fair

Oh, Glorious morning
Azure and Turquoise hue
Tired, with days new dawning
But always, coming back to you

Kev Moore 2006