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La vacante en Cabo

The noon sun pours down
Over the swim-up bar
Over the girls with perfect bodies
Sent here to celebrate
Mi Cabo
They can drink and they do, and do
I’m too old but
They buy me shots anyway
These cute girls
Sort of bitchy I must say
Probably spoiled
But assumptions aren’t nice
So more shots it is
Probably make perfect
Del Mar housewives
With hobbies and protests
PETA and the PTA
While they step over the Homeless
Newest cell phones and places to be
But, oh ya, assumptions aren’t nice
This round on me
As the shadow line sits
For hours
In the same spot on my shoulder
Tropic of Cancer
And hip hop music
Got to be drunk for this
It’s all
Going
Nowhere

The sun arcs up
Over Pedrigal Beach
Once again
To assume its post
Over untouched morning sand, and me
Over miles of vacancy
Empty Mansions
Stacked upon cliffs
I don’t care to notice
Except for a few
Kind and broken figures
Sweeping the cobblestone streets
Watering the palm trees
By hand
They don’t hear the waves anymore
As they crash down
And thunder
Around these ghostly grey rocks
That pierce up through the beachfront
My perch today
On the edge of the Pacific
No one swims here
A good place for contemplation
One would think
But I’m as flat as the horizon
And quiet as the tiny fishing boats
Bobbing off the shore
I wonder if that’s the same guy
Who sold me clams?
Yesterday, in a silver bucket
I could trace the rhythm of waves
Back as far as I wanted
If I felt like it
Maybe Cortez sat here too
On the tip of Baja
On my rock
Mist soaking his shirt, like mine
How many waves
Between me and him?
I better step off
Get back
So easy to slip
43 years is plenty, yes
But we have lunch plans

Tequila flows swiftly
As merchants bargain
On the hot golden beach
Fake sunglasses, wicker hats
I buy for no reason
Saying no-thanks grows tiresome
And the resentment
In the subtext
Between the smiles of the locals
Grows wearisome
No way to reconcile
Even with manners
And all sincerity
Economic class
We had nothing to do with
As the sun settles down
Over their dusty streets
Over our marble patios
Whispers
The cartels are moving in
These touristy havens
60 bodies just found
Buried in a hole
I don’t blame them
The Waiters, the Drivers
For their fierce black eyes

Next time I’ll stay home
Drink in my friend’s pool

Last few words: 
Well I'm a little nervous to post this. I just wrote it down quickly with the intent of going back to make structured verses out of it, but now I like how it is. Stream of Consciousness style I guess.
Editing stage: 

Comments

it's absolutely brilliant.
A social observation on several levels.
The skimpy bikini girls, self absorbed, sad to think they will in all likelihood go on to produce more of the same.
The quiet contemplation spot and associations it brings you.
The locals, who seem not to appreciate the beauty. If beauty it is.
Then the awful thought of just how this tourist utopia was built.
I've been to places just like this - there are probably a great many in the world.
I have never been one of the skimpily clad bikini girls though - always the one hiding under a towel, observing.
Jx

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I'm so happy you liked this! Like I said, I wrote this right after my vacation without much re-working so I wasn't sure if it was good or not. I was going for authentic and raw. I'm so happy you got it. These kind of touristy places used to be more fun for me, but I guess I'm just getting old. It all feels so contrived and hopeless.

author comment

But a downer. Maybe even sadly cynical superiority.

Why let the fake and shallow morons drag you down?
Take the piss, enrage, disturb and infuriate them with a few harmless sounding harpoons to their drab psyches. Still sounding superior? Yeah sure, but you are, aren't you? With your great intellect, political awareness and poetic insight into the absurdity of all activity.

At least some practical jokes, piss in the swimming pool, invent new personas.
Are we having fun yet?

cheers,
Jess
A new workshop on the most important element of poetry-
'Rhythm and Meter in Poetry'
https://www.neopoet.com/workshop/rhythm-and-meter-poetry

The poetic absurdity of all human activity! Yes! This makes me smile. As for the superiority aspect of this poem, yes I suppose it comes across that way. Empathy is a slippery slope…to have it in the first place a judgment must be made, one that results in the conclusion that subject of the judgment is lacking somehow in ways that your not. It’s a trap. Even if you feel guilty for your favorable position and try to compensate by being generous or conciensouos in any way…well, that’s condescending and patronizing. Its calling attention to the gap. Ironic but your better off just being an oblivious asshole. Everyone knows the game, nothing anyone can do, get over myself, and have some drinks! like you said. :)

author comment

At a very commercial Australian resort which has ropes beside all the paths to guide the intoxicated to their accommodation we re-arranged the ropes and signs causing some to find themselves in wrong rooms, the latrines, pools or back at the bar.

We sat in banana chairs, tripping on acid and explaining to confused folk that it was a test by aliens to see if we were eligible for the Galactic Federation, that the management were confusing them in order to ship them off to the white slave trade, or that the island was sinking and relieving themselves of all worldly possessions was their only hope for salvation.

We were asked to leave the next day and spent the next two weeks in pubs playing pool and talking to people with nothing to prove.

cheers,
Jess
A new workshop on the most important element of poetry-
'Rhythm and Meter in Poetry'
https://www.neopoet.com/workshop/rhythm-and-meter-poetry

Now your talking! ! I've never done acid but you'd be the guy Id try it with.

Cheers,
K

author comment

not knowing you very well. You might have got very shitty indeed. It was, after all, a serious, angry poem, and kudos for that.

Despite my flipness I really have protested from 'working within', civil disobedience, protests, some of which got violent, even a few other stratagems for social change that I can't name because I'm not sure of the statute of limitations.

The world is getting fucked up and dying, few individual can be named and blamed, the crimes are very largely committed by corporations, corporate personhood being the biggest danger to labour and our planet I've seen in 50 years (I'm 60 but didn't become politically active till I was 10). Not just CEOs should go to jail but the shareholders who profit from their crimes.

cheers,
Jess
A new workshop on the most important element of poetry-
'Rhythm and Meter in Poetry'
https://www.neopoet.com/workshop/rhythm-and-meter-poetry

I think a lot of us gringos have been in that spot over the years in the Caribbean or Central America but not really that different from tahiti nowadays

I don't think you need the last stanza...there's a social political and economic agenda in the poem the last thought I don't think ads to the poem.
Thanks for taking me back to those many trips to a resort somewhere with all the baggage

Eumolpus
I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance
ee cummings

Its interesting to me when I write like this – without a filter, just reflecting on what comes to mind - and then step back and notice what I noticed. A good way to self-assess like a Roshak test. I really wasn’t trying to make any social statements or push an economic agenda, but after reading the 3rd verse again I can see that stuff in the poem. Maybe the word “economic class” kind of sends the poem in a more political direction than I intended and it seperates me in a way that seems elitist. That’s not a word I would ever use in context of my own countrymen – I just don’t believe those distinctions should be recognized here and my empathy drops like a rock inside our own borders. I won’t get into my own background, but I certainly don’t come from privilege, and I would never judge anyone here based on where they started in life. However, in most 2nd and 3rd world countries the opportunities are nil. Those people are stuck. And that’s not always a bad thing either – it’s a fallacy to measure everyone’s success with the same yardstick you have for yourself – that is elitism. Actually, some of the happiest people I’ve ever meet live in small shaks clustered together - one big family in each. They cook every meal together, spend every night together, and don’t feel like they are missing a thing. But in this case the people seemed desperate. I’ve always had fun in these places, but something was different this time…maybe the current geopolitical landscape, mabe the increase in Cartel activity in Mexico, maybe I was just different. But I couldn’t get away from the negative vibs. Anyway, thanks for reading my work again!
Cheers!
K

author comment

Sometimes, they just get away from you and take on a life of their own!
I like this little trip to the socially-unconscious world of tourism. Many people never get the sense of what it took to make their resort the happy place that they go off to year after year. You did, and a very nice poem resulted! ~ Gee.
.
P.S. Still waiting for some rhyme from you.
.

There is value to commenting and critique, tell us how you feel about our work.
This must be the place, 'cause there ain't no place like this place anywhere near this place.

Yes sir! this one definitely wrote itself. Glad you liked it! The rhyme stuff will be coming soon! its tough but fun.

author comment

I love it when a read stirs me to
comment, requires it ... thank you,
I loved this. The only thing I could
possibly offer as critique would be
the capitol letters at each line,
they don't really detract from the read,
but with more emphasis on how it is
read with line breaks and punctuation,
well, in my opinion this could rub elbows
with the greats.

thanks for sharing

Thanks for the great feedback! I struggle with how to use punctuation and capitols a lot in poetry. Your totally correct about that. I end making a mess with it usually, so I just take it all out. Ill keep working on it. I'm so glad you like this! Oh...I've been really busy so I don't get on here much lately..sorry for the late reply

author comment

nice this one
from an oldy
but where have you been
in hiding behind screens

Hi Lovedly. I have been really busy. No time for writing or getting on here. Ill be back in a few months. I actually didn't really mean to post this again, I just wanted to change a few tiny things and keep it in my personal stuff. I guess you cant do that? I don't really want to clog up the stream with the same stuff every time I feel like changing one word. Guess Ill figure it out. Anyway, thanks!

author comment
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