I sat on a bag

I sat on a bag

All night in an airport

What a place,

I believe it was in Malta.

It could have been a dream

Maybe a nightmare

It felt like it at the time

But do you get Policemen

In dreams?

What would they be policing

Are there rules of engagement?

The dream police

Does sound like a line from

A song.

They carried guns

Which always seems unfair.

And I always remember the old Jackie D’Shannon

Song needles’n’pins-a,

The Searchers version,

When my bum is numb.

There was a time when

I would have said it was the worst

Airport I have ever been stuck in

But Luton takes some beating

Especially for parking

I think we left the car in Scotland.

Park-and-ride schemes are a nightmare

At the best of times

Especially if you take them

At face value

You could be in a different time zone.

I remember another

Nightmare moment

Stuck in a tent

On a beach in the rain

My brother’s, sister-in-law

Trying and failing to sing

The Fourmost “A Little Lovin’”

That was most certainly a nightmare

I sometimes return to

With a degree of longing

For those innocent

Pre-digital days.

Before a performance could be

Instantly replayed

We could live in blissful ignorance

Of the facts.

But what a voice she had,

Unnerving

Or perhaps unrelenting

With a very individual

Interpretation of a tune.

It can’t have been a proper nightmare,

The airport

In Malta

As I would have been the pilot

The joystick

Would have come unstuck from the floor

The wings would have flapped

I would have been ejected

Without a parachute

To skinny-dive into the deep-end

The pins and needles

Would have become a cramp

And I would have fallen out

Of the bed

Screaming.