Tourists

(freewrite)

from JoeUser Forums
Circle the globe and probe its penetrable surfaces,
take the pictures, send the postcards, and charge all of your purchases,
and categorize all other types of worthlessness as
character building,
without tools, without a foundation, without a willing public,
you packed everything so carefully but forgot to bring the luck with,
your powerful handshake leaves everyone else empty handed,
from the once proud locals,
to native tribes now disbanded,
culture sold at discount rates, and in tour packages,
and as of late you haven't been able to locate the secrets you hid under the mattresses,
we all need airing out,
our greivances and our unmet desires,
reflected back to us in the photographs where we really wanted to smile,
but we were looking at the camera, we'd been looking for home all the while.
art
395 views 3 replies
Reply #1 from JoeUser Forums Top
I like.

As always.

Actually, to get further into it, planned vacations always seem like this: check out 'hot spots' on line, try to get a discount deal, go to some village that was appropriated dozens of decades ago, that now displays remnants of what it might have been, or so the historians tell us.

What is it that we are looking for when we sign up for that Ancient Rome trip, or the Aborigine Exploration trip? Something we were? Something we could have been? Do we want to rewrite history by our own visit, to make it into an image that we need to see it as?

Phew. You got me going there.
Galactic Civilizations III
Reply #3 from JoeUser Forums Top
thx guys, i just got back from a three week splurge in germany, the netherlands, italy and austria. I wish I could've traveled even 10 years ago as i imagine many of the places i visited would've seemed more authentic in the romanticized american way. apparently the usa is the most difficult place in the world to travel for foreign tourists now. I was certainly jealous of the eur-rail system and the extensive bike trail system. it would make it a lot easier to explore even my own country.