Caribbean Vacation

This is more of story. I made the choice to forgo any devices of poetry, seeing as the scope of this encompasses quite a few poems. I didn't just want to evoke this, I wanted to recreate it as it was

The Caribbean imprisonments.

Every year we have to visit.

We lug our bags on custom lines

and war with trays against our knees

pass the time with magazines that hawk

talking garden tools and gyrating chairs

as our seats merge with our sweat-soaked skin, and

orange men are signaling in untended windows

on cracking runways in sniveling conditions.

 

We stretch in the fuselage, stale with

fraught sleep and tossed bags, then disembark like black magic in a

hot balloon blast, a haute couture add, we beam down each step

like fresh pressed white linen on the white house front lawn,

the passports, press passes, the Nokia flashes of

media-mania capturing all and captured by nil.

 

It starts the same every year. I'm at baggage claim.

There's this family, the Listerine grinning Dad, his vacant

Madame, and three daughters that sway in their sandals and

scan the boozed amphitheater, throw back their hair that's so

improbably structured for that common a place.

The legs are icons of ignorance, crushing the tiles that

might as well shatter like pieces of jet. The eyes, all the same, narrowed for

merchandise, the youngest the brightest, but no! I digress.

We get on a van, and cross to the island, and I pray to

the Gods I won't see them again.

 

The stretches of grass with beasts and not holes,

a tram shuttling the kids of polo entrepreneurs

that glides past the beaches with etiquette rules.

The winds plunging through rocks at the snorkeler’s necks,

cheering on sheets of green grey swirled surf and

Whistling past cliffs that jut just out of reach

of the lawn with white weddings and afternoon tea.

 

This paradise isn't

where I want to be.

 

I'm waiting for the shuttle when I hear

a jumble of language, and onto the scene

springs a mother, her daughter, with ivory jeans.

The hot air fills me with bluster, then withdraws, and

I'm left in the trail of the shuttle that night.

 

Next night on estate steps, I'm charging my laptop,

and there she is. Reading a book in the nook by the bar.

I stumble into her light, and say hello.

I head back to my room in a tree branch framed glow.

 

The beach, the next morning, and I'm buried in headphones,

she's standing right over and I abandon my nap.

It's her, her kid brother, me and my bro. We talk

and play catch and it rumbles, sheds a few drops,

I race for the umbrella and shelter under gnarled brush.

We play cards, a French kind of charades. She explains

all the rules and it's us versus them.

We work out our signal and dissolve into laugher

and I think I'm in love.

 

I'm on my deck that night, and the moon over

the pounding waves is so far from the tarmac, the blizzards,

the mainland that stings of an island instead of these winds!

 

I'm perched high-up at the well-hidden gym, showing her lifts. 

Her weights are ten pounds, and I think I'm in love.

We head back for dinner and oh! I should have

taken her hand. But she likes me, I'm sure. 

I see her at dinner.

 

Next day at the beach I pause my IPod, slitting my eyes

and peeking out of a corner, but she's followed the afternoon sun

and my songs play, uninterrupted.

 

Then right after, at tea, I wait for her to arrive, but she's somewhere else.

I can hear the surf scraping the clay off the side, and the alter creaks

in a much needed day off. I climb to the estate; I'll plug in my phone,

and she's there with three Polo's conversing in French. I turn on my heel

and head to my room.

 

I go to the gym, and she's running there. She nods

in brisk pace as I throw open the door. 

I slide on the weight and sweat in a

feat, sidelong glance in the mirror and she's slowing, 

she's stopped, she's wiping her face, she's 

checking the clock, she's gathering her things.

I'm done so I rush over to make a small joke,

she nods and heads for the door.

 

The day darkens as we make our descent. 

We've missed the last hour of sun at the beach, the weakest hour. 

I dance down the path and she hurries, I start and I slow, I 

don't want to follow her but I thought we were friends, 

she's uneasy and so I let her disappear in the buzz 

of the crickets and gathering air.

 

I see her that night. On the beach. We meet in secret. 

I greet her with our signal, and she laughs in her Francophone way. 

The sand kicks up and blinds us in stinging showers as 

our knees and backs carve SOS marks on the vanishing shore, 

rolling in salt and seaweed and drowned out by watery moans

that crumble the cliffs. The breeze plows through and 

tickles the nape of my neck, she whispers in her foreign tongue 

and I understand perfectly well, although I wish I could 

hear her thoughts, too. The sliver of spotlight

shows on the sand, and the marks that we left are 

ironed and flat.

 

Our boat pries from the shoreline as all the other tourists line up on the dock to

dive in a final farewell. I gaze down at the girl I never touched. 

She's in her bathing suit. This always happens. Every single year. 

Back to the island. It pulls away,

the dock people poising to dive, and I'm 

burning as I bore down into her.

She looks up at me. The sun plays some game in her eyes, and 

bounces off them like a signal, flickering, and for this single moment 

I can see her thoughts. See that she sees mine. 

See that she's sorry. See that maybe we'll meet again. See that-

but she dives-

and as the masses of sea creatures bob up and down in the water,

growing smaller and smaller,

I grow nauseous with the familiar feeling of lifting off, of

tearing away from home on another of these wonderful

winter vacations.

Author's Note

This is a mess! Believe me, I'm aware. I'm a big proponent of honesty. I'll figure out a way to tell of love and loss in a beautiful, concise way, but I hungered for the details here. I'm an obsessive, stubborn writer, and I wanted to unify this memory to some extent here. So yeah, it goes from back and forth from poetic imagery into stream of consciousness first hand account, and I agree with all those who will say it absolutely fails as a poem. I will say this though, the changes in voice and style within this do mean something. As the attitude towards mocking and trivializing a memory shifts to sentimentalizing it, lamenting it, altering it and back again to a spray of embittered cynicism, the language follows suit, and I'd like to 'present' this as an experiment, an endeavor into a different kind of poetry, the kind with many poetic voices that combine in a synergy to result in... I'm curious as to how much a writer can get away with if it's carried off well and unified under his perspective

Reviews

[Rachelle]

Hmmmm… I live in two continents…. Can empathize with the stress and discomfort of travel. 26 hours to get from the U.S. to the Philippines and back… cramped in economy seats for 12 hour flights… being more uncomfortable if my seat mates are huge men who try to strike a conversation with me…. I have to undergo this 4 times a year. I live the life of a nomad.
And it is thus, I can only say that, while initially it seemed like rambling, the work made sense. The rambling echoed the journey, the impermanence of the experience, the frustration of seeking permanence in someone impermanent, and the emotions that twist and turn as the tale flows. Again, it is a tale of a journey - the physical and the emotional.

[Bluefire]

I thought it was beautiful.
The story was told in a ghostlike way. I like the line, "this happens every year" it make me think of a recurring dream or a residual haunting.
Well done! ^^

[Rana]

This piece is. Wonderful. Totally like it! Its kinda relatable too, having to go to some location of family's choice for the vacations, sulking, but ending up liking it there due to the people met there, umm, in ur case just one person met. Feel sorry for the sad ending. The events have been unfolded so beautifully. The wishful thinking was on the boy's part and that was sweet somehow. The style is good too. Also, it added a couple of words to my vocabulary. :)

[cimmy wuv xxxooo]

I wan't to say that I loved this piece but I can't im truly sorry.
to much complicated words in there for me, and I didn't compleatly understand the story.... so I maybe skipped a little of it, although I did read most of it.
I didn't completely hate it, I did like how deep it was and it truly seems like you have worked really hard on it I like that.
It was romantic and had lots of emotion in it.
Im really sorry I didn't like it much I feel bad.
Anyway thats just one persons opinion, everyone writes in different ways I guess.
Just because I didn'' like it that much, doesn't at all mean its not good.
Ill read some of you're other stuff :)

[Thaddius]

Thank God for your honesty. I truly appreciate it

[cimmy wuv xxxooo]

your welcome :) I should like your other pieces :)