portraits of red and grey #1 by James Morehead
July 3, 2011
portraits of red and grey #1
by James Morehead
marshie greets us a salesman today carrying brochures of russia red with cathedrals mosques museum statues and snow-tipped mountain tops ( marshie - our english teacher cool among the strung out hormone-driven schoolboys seventeen years old and reckless ) he needs fifteen of us an eighteen day adventure ( excited whispers fly disheveled ties and ripped-seam blazers our eyes light up we ignore mom and dad's expected gasps two thousand canadian dollars : airfare hotel food expenses into communist coffers ) we have to go young impatient imaginations explode dreams of faraway places of sean connery and michael caine ( capitalist kings in a lesser land ) in a few days excited whispers and red brochures whither but i hang on my mind wanders each night through glossy tourist snapshots my dreamy russia enchanted my dreams innocent ignorant ----- i study russia for homework waiting anxiously for departure library book history tour book advice what to wear where to buy rubles kopeks and rules don't drink the water or take pictures of bridges trucks soldiers tanks i pack my suitcase full with black market currency cigarettes buttons gum jeans running shoes cassettes ----- pearson airport, toronto fifteen camera-clad schoolboys oxfords and school blazers replaced by topsiders and gucci sweaters we are surrounded by parents excited nervous hugs and kisses be careful see you soon ----- i can't remember most of their names or faces only my roommate phil passed out in a vodka swirl and raoul eating black-market caviar breakfast lunch and midnight snack and frank armed with two-thousand dollar photo gear ( he never learned how to focus ) and marshie buying us drinks drinking and ignoring : the perfect chaperone
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