Returning Home: A spoken word perspective

Returning Home: A spoken word perspective

Returning Home: A spoken word perspective

"Memories just come up and slap you in the face
Jostling for attention, to replace 
The present moment copy-paste 
Control C Control V
Lack of control, ah woe is me"

The following is a spoken word piece I wrote that seeks to capture my experience of returning to live in Ireland, back to my hometown of Bray, Co. Wicklow, having lived abroad for a number of years. It brings up many conflicting emotions, wrestling with decisions, and the challenges in trying to rebuild a life.

Probably because of the reflective & nostalgic nature of the piece, I wove in a number of different pop culture references, particularly from the 80s and 90s. Some are quite obvious, but some are a lot more subtle.

I performed this at a Seanchoíche event in May 2024 (as part of the International Literature Festival in Dublin) in front of c. 150 people I believe, easily the biggest audience I've had the opportunity to speak in front of. One of those audience members happened to work for an organisation (Crosscare's Irish Diaspora Support Project) who had a conference planned for June on that very theme. I was then kindly invited (by Lucia) to perform this as part of the conference closing session, which was a huge privilege. More info here if you'd like to check it out- https://diasporasupport.ie/returning-home/

Hope you enjoy.

Returning home 

By Karl Byrne 

There's no fanfare

No confetti 

No victory lap glory day Mario Andretti 

No Ferris Bueller parade with the leopard skin waistcoat all sweaty

The question is

Do folks even know you've been gone for all these years

Your worst fears

Not being forgotten or not being remembered

Click here to reset your password

Time and space getting blurred

Into one another, into the absurd

The reality is

No one is waiting for you to move on with their lives

I know that sounds contrived

So what am I trying to revive? 

As I open up that dusty archive 

Into a quasi-reality nose dive

And fragments of an old life pour out overdrive 

Memories just come up and slap you in the face

Jostling for attention, to replace 

The present moment copy-paste 

Control C Control V

Lack of control, ah woe is me

Slowly transitioning back across that Irish Sea

I spent so much time, so much energy

Deliberating about where I wanted to be

Long walks by the sea

Long walks on the prom with my sis

Talking about all the things I missed

So much to embrace, yet so much to resist 

Push and pull factors fighting on top of the list

Hard to see a future in either to exist

That's not somehow obscured by mist

But events came to a head

And a decision had to be made 

Next step on the journey post decade 

So here I am

Pretending like I have a life

Making a start and playing the part

But not whole heart

Like Descartes

Things fall apart

At the roots or at the seams

This recurring theme

Of trying to build a life while on the train in a scene

Like Buster Keaton clearing sleepers from the tracks in my dreams

What does it all mean

When you're playing the stunt man in a film on screen 

Playing someone else's character, seen yet unseen

Like Marty McFly disappearing from the photo at seventeen

All is just not quite what it seems 

Doc you gotta help me, find a way, intervene

Coz I'm about to Edvard Munch on a painting as a scream

I'm about to get trapped in the space in-between

My life drawn on a canvas, what's real, green screen

Lost in time, a machine

Delorean, Mezzanine


Inertia starts to creep

What the hell am I doing here, black sheep

Stepped in too deep

That should I wade no more faith seeps

To return as tedious as go over, too steep

Struggling with sleep

The balm for hurt minds that weep 

Counting 478's, no sheep

But cogito ergo sum

Doesn't always add up

When the I questions me questions self in rhyme

Somehow existing and not at the same time

A dead ringer for Schrodinger

Singer

Do you have to let it linger?

Starting to realise

Just how much I compartmentalise 

My so called life

Into separate chunks

Primary. Drafts. Junk

From bento box to bed bunk

Daft Punk to G-funk

But I don't really know Thelonius Monk

All around me the kids, honey I shrunk

No fatherhood yet, but my costs sunk

Fallacy, where rhythm is life

And life is hidden 

Behind a glass wall, access forbidden


You see it's the wider context that's so desperately lacking

I'm having network connectivity problems and it's nerve-wracking

Servers overheating lights blinking and blacking 

Living in a type of hoover, sucked in so vacking

Ever the outsider through undergrowth hacking

Shame sitting on guilt piggybacking

Where's the Wallace to my Gromit what's cracking

Want to turn and go back

But go back to what? 

That life doesn't exist 

And I can't shake the feeling

That a big deal for me 

Is just something small in someone else's life

My paragraph their line 

Wait a sec

Incoming call, accept-decline 

Choice is mine

Look it's fine 

Opportunities there, don't whine 

Or resign (yourself)

To a syndrome 

Shifting baseline

System endocrine 

Adrenal saw the sign

Don't drink grapevine

Buttered oat breadline 

Still space sublime

Getting closer keep climb