a tourist has sixteen hands but only one foot.
he brings his girlfriend along for metaphysics.
she brings her cosmetic smile to paint landscapes.
s/he is photographing long lost pictures of the children eating
pineapple fritters on banana leaves.
and their knapsacks sicken the waving fields of gravel.
someone ought to tell them to send box tops not bottled water.
"wikiup!" says the tourist, meaning "home sweet home"
and "home is where you harvest beans."
they are too interested in foreign monotony to notice how brilliantly they shine in the eyes of rodents.
their hotels glisten in the moonlight and their airports
eat up all the ancient cereal grains.
"wikiup! wikiup! wikiup!" they chant at the baobab and the mangosteen. and they are really sincere about it.
but when push comes to shove they go home after capturing
the souls of the natives on their smartphones to display as
trophies to other tourists -- and when they grow old
they are stuffed and displayed
at the Smithsonian.
*****************************
To the author:
Sometimes being mysterious is intriguing, as if the the strange passageways are leading somewhere, and both the journey and the destination promise to be a delight. But sometimes I feel stuck in a dark room and the mystery turns to mere meaninglessness. Promised delight dissolves into present irritation.
So to avoid being stuck I want to ask a few questions:
In what sense is your (intriguing) offering FROM an opinion piece in the NYT. Is it a direct excerpt? Is it inspired by the opinion piece? Are all the words FROM the opinion piece, but brilliantly (and strangely) selected and rearranged? Is the opinion piece genuinely titled "Machu Picchu Is in Unnecessary Danger" (etc. . . . as in your subject line)?
If this is something you created (either using words from the opinion piece or inspired by it), what is your creative method or process? (That's one of the intriguing mysteries that I hope will turn to enlightenment.) What led you to create this piece and use the particular method you used? Are you imitating the style of a particular writer? Do you have some purpose beyond that of creating an interesting verbal artifact?
I realize that if I asked Shakespeare or Allen Ginsberg or T. S. Eliot or some other writer questions like these, they might say, "I don't have to answer your questions. My creation speaks for itself. It's up to you to enjoy it or be baffled by it or figure it out without my help. Or if you must, to ignore it."
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But we're naturally curious, and honestly, the writer is a better source than mere guessing to get answers to our questions. And though I think Hamlet and The Waste Land are worth spending time figuring out without the author's help, I probably won't devote hours of effort analyzing your creation. It would be immensely satisfying, therefore, to get a few straight answers directly from you.
In anticipation of which, I offer many thanks, and remain as always, sir, your humble servant,
Bruce
**********************************
To the Bruce:
In a nutshell (where it belongs), I write poems like this because in postmodern/zen poetry there is no such thing as a typo. It is what it is. Making it completely verbal, ephemeral -- with no more importance, but all the charm, of a soap bubble. (which reminds me of my favorite movie line of all time, from the film The Bank Dick, starring W.C. Fields: He meets his prospective son-in-law, whose name is Ogg Oggleby, and repeats the name back to himself, musing: "Ogg Oggleby -- sounds like a soap bubble . . . ")
