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HOLIDAY SNAPS
Soaring low
over wave-swept white hot beach
desolate as Crusoe's hideaway
Touchdown on a rippled tarmac
soft in the reflection of a falling tropical sun
The air-conditioned/controlled Boeing 767 D
left behind us with its hibernation slumber
Outside the 'mild heat' sprouted salty beads from between toes
clothes showered onto the contours of a paled white body
"This is Paradise!"
...
Passport
Giddy with jet lag, fastened to the 'travel unit'
now arrived at get four, five, and six
Reason For Visit
Check baggage check luggage check money check cheques check
Anything To Declare
A tall stained officious uniform rummages for his supper
Aha! Two suspicious plastic santa clausi... $85.95
"Have a nice holiday"
Get Behind The Red Line
...
Small and mottled grey
a common house lizard
fell into the sights of our terrible gang
yet untrained in the ways of the tropics
The hunt commenced
boys bounded into action
squaring off reptile, bushy tailed and antlered
fumbling over chairs and tables, finally victory
Common house lizard calmly clasped
silence crowds around, to stroke its soft skin
and then... freedom
...
Car
crammed with sweat and elbows
weaved its way along ridges of pocked and buckled asphalt
Ruins abandoned on the carpet of a jungle mountain range
to spill out on fields of blue-bagged bananas
and endless 'Shark & Bake' dotted along the spine of Maracas Bay
"Just the way it was 30 years ago"
The soft white sand, sucking, swirling surf
unexploited by hotels and stripmalls
Cobeux soaring above the lethal coconut fronds
hungry for carrion left on the road
It is hard to see the gibbering beggar on the postcard beach
or the Cobeux circling patiently for a coconut to fall full forty feet
A comical 'boink', then to feast
...
The light flickered its halting red with practiced indifference
Street vendors made their way from car window to window
hocking potugals, doubles and roast corn
Rastas with their medusan hair held up jombie beads
shark tooth and "Praise to Ja, iree !"
From corrugated rust shacks lined like proud beggars
one man carried a frame, jeweled with plastic bags of candy floss
Absurd in this tropical paradise
melting slowly into the concrete island he was stranded on
dreaming of the circus... the fair
The light flickered green
...
Bed
sticky pool of restlessness
rolling over its hard mattress in the mist of a smoldering Cockset
The shrouded ceiling
a dancing mirage of Mama de L'eau Lugarhoo La Diablese
Electric spark, rhythmic pulse of life
searching among dreams, nightmares
Another spark emerges
found, the two starlights drift together
over the thick milky darkness
Stuttering heartbeat
racing through the motions of Pheramonal Stimulus
trapped in the mist of a smoldering Cockset
...
Car
crammed with schoolgirl flashbacks and schoolboy tantrums
weaved its way along the thin scar of asphalt
raised above the rancid gutters and passers by
Past the old Chin corner store
Past the old Tang laundry
Past the old Wong garage
Onto Coffee Street
with broken houses lined up like forgotten headstones
"Just the way it was 30 years ago"
The house leaned heavily on its walls
tilting itself over the rusted chicken wire fence
belligerent and senile
6 people living in a 40 by 40 foot space
the numbers contract and expand
to cover the memories
Naparima Girls School, High Street, Princes Town
The car pulled away before the beggars could circle in
Copyright - Tristan Ming Tang
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