a neutral stagger

I should have known better…
stick with chocolate and cheese.

The Swiss were never known for their sandwiches.
The bread was neither hearty or soft, somewhere lost
between whole grain and white.
I would have expected a dark Pumpernickel,
grilled, filled with a tangy cheese
born into being between two solid plates of fortitude.

But there was no conviction at all,
merely a mess of ingredients that left me unfulfilled.

That was many years ago,
during the war
the “War to end all Wars”
that didn’t actually end up ending anything.

Recently I returned to the Alps,
searching for the memory of
something I once presumed lost.

It was after the fall of the Eastern Bloc.
There were too many –istans to remember,
long complex words full of letters and guttural beliefs
as full of presumed resentment as the German language,
waiting to hack up syllables in phlegmatic distate at
the “Englishness” of the new world order.

One quiet morning in the hotel lobby,
enjoying a chocolate and coffee (lesson learned),
I witnessed a treasure trove of personalities
stroll up to the front desk to check in.

The clerk must have made the mistake of misspoken identity,
For I was just close enough to hear the new guests utter in disdain
deeply and unforgiving, with perfect pitch and grammatical structure:

Russian? Russian?! You people all look alike to me as well.
I proudly hail from Kazakhstan, and no, we don’t want any vodka.
Champagne, for our celebration, see to it!

“Straight away”, the clerk muttered hurriedly,
rushing embarrassedly through their paperwork,
snapping for the bellboy to lead them up to their rooms.

I chuckled at the exchange, the irony, and asked for some Polish vodka,
a mild form of protest.