My Odyssey: a haibun

August 6, 2026

My Odyssey: a haibun

For this week’s d’Verse Poets’ Haibun Monday, Frank J. Tassone invites us to engage in some journeying of our own — through haibun. Write one that reflects journeying as you understand it.
This prompt sparked a memory from my time travelling in Greece, when things hadn’t quite worked out as I expected and I found myself seeking help in the British Embassy…

My Odyssey

Athens, Greece, circa 1982

Skylos is my dog, and my arms hold him tight. I’m struggling in the heat as I’m also trailing my case behind me. Skylos is a very large dog that I had found abandoned on an Athens street and kept me company throughout my time working in the city. I am very fond of him.

At the coach stop in Syntagma Square, a coach is waiting — just as the British Ambassador had told me it would be. I was alone and broke in the great city of Athens, and the day before I’d had tea and biscuits with him in the Embassy. Off the record, he told me about this so‑called ‘magic bus’: an illegal service that cost £25 and drove non‑stop, apart from toilet breaks and quick sandwiches, for twenty‑four hours to Victoria Coach Station, London.

He had helped me sort my meagre earnings into small piles for refreshment stops along the route — drachmas, lira, dinars and francs. Later, I discovered the accuracy of his calculations. In Italy, my lunch came down to the very last coin.

The bus driver grabs my suitcase and hurls it into the bowels of the luggage hold. Looking at Skylos, he said, “You can’t take that with you. There isn’t room.”

As the bus taking me home drives away, my last view of Skylos is him sitting on the kerb, abandoned and homeless once more. His torn ear dangles on a thin thread waving goodbye.

He grows smaller and recedes into a shimmering heat haze.

hot motors moan
blurred scenery slips past
wheels turn

_{—Lesley Scoble, August 2026}