wouldn’t it be great to learn Greek
she says
quickly riffling
through the phrasebook
with a thumb and her tongue out
while I try to discover what
‘to speak’ is in Dutch
everyone uses English
you know I say
spluttering ‘ik spreek, jij spreek,
hij spreek’,
trying to nail the pronunciation
like the book tells me to
‘ick sprake, yigh sprake, hi sprake’
but they might appreciate
tourists knowing a bit in Crete
like ‘efcharistó’
or ‘ti ypérochi méra’ she mutters
but it all, literally,
sounds Greek to me
and we can’t visit everywhere
besides, she wants warm weather
but I’d be fine in, say, Sweden,
‘Där är den närmaste Ikea?’
or in Iceland, but I can’t
pronounce anything
the way the phrasebook
wants me to
so Greece is probably best,
and anyway,
she’s too busy
informing me that
‘monókeros’ means unicorn
and it’s 575 quid each
if we book now
Written: April 2015.
Explanation: A poem written in my own time, regarding two people planning where to go on holiday, and using phrasebooks to pick up some of the language. I own several phrasebooks myself, including Greek, Danish, and Chinese. The foreign phrases in the poem translate as 'I speak', 'you speak', 'he speaks', 'thank you', 'what a lovely day', 'where is the nearest Ikea?' and 'unicorn'. All feedback welcome. A link to my Facebook writing page can be found on my HP home page.
NOTE: Many of my older pieces will be removed from HP at some point in the future.
