LET ME THROUGH, I'M A POET!

I was in a queue
waiting to show my passport,
to the cop at Barcelona airport

I was in a hurry,
my interminable journeys
between Pompey and Barna
meant I had the itinerary
down to a tee:
if the plane arrived on time
and
I slithered
quickly through
customs etc.
I would get to
Premia-de-Mar
in time for my class,
and evade,
not that I truly cared,
the wrath of my evil
rodent-creature boss
and
more importantly than that
get paid
for the aforesaid lesson

I was third in line.
The woman in front of me
was a ridiculous distance
from the woman
showing her passport.
I mean they've got that silly yellow line
you're meant to stand behind
but
for Christ's sake
we're not in a bank,
nobody's imparting any secrets,
almost everyone ignores that line
and stands right behind
the person being procedured

I was restless,
hour-glasses
were spitting sand.
I said to the woman in front of me,
I'm almost certain my words were not
accompanied
by a slight push,
"Come on, come on!
Get on with it!
Move up!"
or
something along those lines.
The woman took umbrage
replied brusquely;
offended

All this was witnessed
by the cop/customs officer
in his little glass booth.
He got out,
despite I am almost certain
no grasp of the English tongue
whatsoever
he decided I was guilty
and the woman in front of me
innocent.

He spoke to me in
Spanish,
told me to get out of the queue
and wait at the side.
If this had been any other country
I would have been fairly nervous
by now,
having invoked the wrath
of
a local official.
A local official
with quite a lot of power,
certainly the power to send me back where
I came from,
but
this was 'Spain',
I reckoned I knew what was required,
and I was right.

After about fifteen minutes
when the whole airplane load
had been processed,
the policia nacional
got out of his booth
and approached me.
I immediately rained
a shower of apologies
down on him,
explained the reason for my haste,
and used 'Usted' a lot.

He nobly accepted my
remonstrations,
but before letting me wend my way,
could not resist
offering a piece of
well reasoned advice:

"Cuando se entra
en un pais,
se tiene que comportar
con cortesia"
he said,
fixing me in the eyes.
Roughly translated
it means
"On entering another country
you should
behave with courtesy/you
should be polite"

It's good advice
good solid advice
hewed from some sturdy Iberian stone.
It has the ring of truth
and is not over-elaborated.
I sincerely thanked him for his reflection
as I pissed off
bollock-late
into the
unsympathetic Mediterranean
twilight