"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