"touristy" poems
Sing a song of Tajmahal
a fine nazm or a ghazal
Of this landmark for lovers
Ah, a lover's edifice
Complete with medieval bowers
It's a Mecca for tourists!
Tis sensational, tis exceptional
tis truly a touristy place.
Watch the shimmer of its magnificent marbled dome
Moonlight or sunlight, it glimmers of imperial chrome
It's ironical then
that though Indian-Arabian I am
I haven't yet been to this touristy place
It is truly as they must say, a lover's shrine
a place where hearts duly incline
They find it steamy
I find it dreamy
Oh, I've got to see for myself this touristy place.
Each of the marbled minarets
conceal such romantic secrets
for lovers to silently explore
to admire and to adore
A place human lovebirds couldn't ignore.
Ah you've got to visit this touristy place!
Two famed lovers lie in the legendary vault below
and the stream too it has a romantic flow
It's a lovers haven and paradise on earth
Even dead passions there undergo a rebirth
Ah, rekindle my love for you in this touristy place!
Extol I may this awesome imposing edifice
A greed for pure love is perhaps better than avarice
Löng live the legend of Shah jahan and Mumtaz mahal
Long live love and love like a Moghul
so forever we have this monumental grace!
Yeah take me my luv to this touristy place!
Jun 11, 2019
Jun 11, 2019 at 2:11 AM UTC
If only we could fly like
those that tweet or hoot
without aid of jet or
parachute
For I sure don't like
wings that boom and roar
just so they can take off
and soar
Ah, to fly without petrol, diesel
or fuel
Oh, to halt that taloned midair
duel *
Birds they don't pollute
the air
nor need they any airline
fare
So if only I too could rise
and glide
and let the wind be my
sole guide
I'd be happy to fly all the
way to 'em' faraway stars
if I was assured I'd risk
no charring scars.
Flying without aviation
formalities
I could be sightseeing
many more cities
Ah I so wish to fly just
like a jay or jackdaw
Then I'd fly across all and
every border
For I'd know nor follow
no man-made law!
If only we needed no darned immigration pass or visa
We could have visited so many more touristy places
Say even the spectacular and popular pyramids of Giza
And we could have known different cultures and races
Ah, a stylish photo next to the leaning tower of Pisa
And return with exotica like a framed pic of the Mona Lisa
Feb 26, 2019
Feb 26, 2019 at 12:20 PM UTC
I want to spend my mornings drinking tea in the early English fog.
Spend my afternoon at the foot of the Eiffel Tower being touristy drinking dark red wine.
I want to drink beer in Germany and head on over to Ireland for dinner.
I want to get sunburns from sunsets in Italy.
Talk to the deadliest animals alive in Australia and swim in the blue ocean near New Zealand.
I want to pic flowers in Thailand and eat sushi in China.
My heart will never stop wandering.
My heart will never be still.
Apr 14, 2015
Apr 14, 2015 at 8:37 AM UTC
I want to take you to the city
and put your name in lights
after spending the day seeing
all the touristy sights
I'll take you to a restaurant
We'll have the finest meal
music will be playing
you'd pick lobster over veal
I'd smile across the table
watching you decide
on cake instead of creme brulee
and of course instead of pie
there'd be women all around us
beauty of all sorts
and still my eyes stay on you
for no other can compare
none has your intense gaze
your lovely sea blue eyes
no lips can match your lusciousness
to me you rise above
We'd leave the restaurant
I'd see it in your eyes
disappointment for you thought it then
I'd saved the real surprise
We'd travel to a busy street
and walking hand in hand
I'd stop and kneel before you
look into your eyes
the lights would flash on behind me
The message beaming bright
I'd read to you a poem
trying to sum up in mere words
the reasons why I love you
and want you in my life
I'd ask you the question
If you would be my wife
I'd take you to the city
together we'd see the sights
we'd have a picnic in a park
we'd find a tree casting shade
and stare into the sky gazing at the clouds
and watch families stroll by
our hands clasped tight together
we'd speak our dreams aloud
the family that'd be ours someday
of a life well lived, the love we'd give
as night fell on the city, day fades away
we'd find a restaurant to eat a meal
and talk about our day
I'd feel the box in my pocket and wait
the moment would be right
I'd thought and planned and knew
tonight would be our night
you ate the cake, instead of pie
I watched you with a smile
the world around us faded out
reaching out to caress your face
to feel your so soft skin
the words I had prepared
seemed so very thin
we paid and leave into the night
the stars shining high above
I take your hand in mine
and we slowly walk
returning to where our day had begun
the lights are out, the park is dark
and then we see the glow, an island of light
we reach the center, there's a fountain
surrounded by a sea of candles
the water burbles happily
I kneel before you in this man made sea
the light it dances on your skin and I know
where to begin, with the love that I feel
and how your love has helped me heal
how I know my life is with you
and with a question I stake it all
be my love, my wife, my all
Sep 25, 2010
Sep 25, 2010 at 10:18 AM UTC
It’s Friday night and a group of us, the ‘university summer fellows’ (Quinn, Jammie, Monique, Lisa and I) are going groovin’. Quinn, a Harvard man (we’ve shed our jaundiced opinions of him), assured us he knows the Boston bar scene. We’re going to test that.
We told him we wanted to sway to whimsical beats and chase vivid, neon lights across dance floors, like a bunch of cats - till the hours get wee. His plan is for us to pop-in the “touristy” places, like ‘the Havana Club’, ‘the Manray club’, ‘Garage Boston’ and ‘The Grand’, we’re so 111. As usual, Charles is our party mom, escort and driver.
When Peter and I were in Saint-Tropez, earlier this summer, there were beach clothes - dresses, skirts and men's shirts - where they’d woven micro-LEDs into the flowered, dry-wick, fabrics. I think the effect is amazing, friday, and joyous. I got two skirts for everyone (all of my roommates). Tonight Lisa and I are wearing a couple of them.
Funny. I’ve mentioned it before, but Lisa‘s an audrey. Her school friends and roommates are all used to it, we’ve been exposed, we have built up immunity. But Quinn’s a newbie, when Lisa came into the living room, LED glittered and lookin-right, he was literally stunned. He froze, for a microsecond, his face went blank and his fingers wiggled, as if disconnected from his overloaded central nervous system.
*** Jammie said, having just turned around, “holla at ya brooke!,” he declared, shaking his head in admiration. “Umm mmm,” he added.
“I’m sure.” Lisa said, starting to transfer things from her everyday bag to her glittery clutch, the girl cannot accept a compliment. Quinn, coming out of it, cleared his throat.
We’re ready. Let Friday night begin!
Jun 30, 2023
Jun 30, 2023 at 12:12 PM UTC
GOD **** THIS CZECH SHAPESHIFTING
lost in Praha
lost in Kafka
losing myself
careful making deals
with old Nick
I said 'Beatle' not 'beetle'
***
WHEN FRANZ MET DÓNALL
'When Dónall Dempsey woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous version of a certain F. Kafka.
Someone must have been telling lies about Dónall Dempsey, he knew he had done nothing wrong but, one morning, he was arrested to find out he had been turned into this F. Kafka.
Where had his Dónall Dempsey-ness gone and why - Kafka? He knew of but had never actually read any - Kafka He had knowledge of the tropes...what Kafka could be reduced to in terms of general knowledge that could possibly clinch a pub quiz victory so that people would nod sagely and say "I knew...you being a poet and all...that you would know the answer to that."
I found that what had happened to me...whatever had happened to me...was more extensive that I had thought so that even my initial "D" become the 11th letter of the alphabet instead of the usual fourth. I was now merely a "K."
I realised I would have to go to Prague to bring some semblance of sense to this transformation. And when I did so...hiding myself among the many tourists...I discovered that Kafka had become me and that we had somehow traded places.
So that now there was a Dónall Dempsey cafe and postcards bearing my features and other such touristy attractions that would be sure to be a sure fire attraction to the traveller with a literary bent of mind.
I visited the grave...his grave...and sure enough...it was my name that was chiseled into the stone.
Meanwhile Kafka was enjoying my life and strolling around Guildford as if it was his own. He appeared to be enjoying being Dónall Dempsey.
"Ha ha..!" I thought. "Give it time...give it time!" And Franz would surely find that being Dónall Dempsey wasn't such a good thing.
And myself being a literary tourist attraction? I ****** well hated it I wanted to crawl away and die or be trampled to a pulp by a frightened child who had discovered a cockroach in her cornflakes.
Dec 7, 2020
Dec 7, 2020 at 8:01 AM UTC
i want to go back to tokyo,
somehow the city always feels like home, even when
i’m always a foreigner;
a touristy tourist with a camera on my hand,
snapping polaroids and selfies with a thousand filters
layered on top of each other,
to enunciate the beauty of the city and at the same time,
reinforce my place as a touristy tourist.
i want to go back to tokyo,
to feel the night breeze kissing my face,
or the scorching daylight next to the vending machine that sets my soul
ablaze;
hot and cold, cold and hot,
i don’t know whether to take my jacket or leave it at the bnb
but i know how cold i’d be,
at night when the sun’s asleep,
and i should be too, if i weren’t too busy loving tokyo.
Mar 18, 2020
Mar 18, 2020 at 3:09 PM UTC
Mouse-perspective; touristy
neck cranked to measure
immensity before me.
So I went higher, to cloudy hills
and gaudy views, where I knew
a great border Above.
Between the clouds I beheld
the enormity of structure, staring
into my eyes? An iris!
Tapestries. Shadow and relief
realized in stone. Baffled
before the incontrovertible
evidence of a benevolent
face? Rushing terrain brings
nostrils, now lips.
Orbiting in the stillness,
stories laid bare as skin
lesions glow.
The cost of working gears
displaces and appears red
as recent scars
where now sprawling sameness
mask the bruises, smooth
as plastic.
My city a single dot
for hands of a blind God
to glide over.
Feb 6, 2021
Feb 6, 2021 at 11:53 AM UTC
By daylight,
they sold
burgers & chips,
the atmosphere
a bit chill,
touristy.
But at night,
things heated up.
The dance floor rocked,
the tiny rooms rolled.
They sold something
tastier than
meat and potatoes.
Many a ******
lost their pesos
to such festivities.
Dec 13, 2013
Dec 13, 2013 at 7:14 AM UTC
You're asleep, but I'm having a little fantasy.
We are going to Paris (of course) and we just decided to go. No planning, no serious packing. Just got our stuff together and went for a few days. We fly through the night, and I wake up with my head on your shoulder (like Gordo and Lizzie) and we eat plane breakfast (which for some reason involves sausage links and orange juice in this little dream) and land at Charles de Gaulle at 10 AM.
We get off the plane and go find our hotel, which is kind of far from the heart of the city but we like it cause that's where the really cute eclectic apartments and shops are. And you buy me red roses that night and every day we take long walks all over the place.
We do touristy stuff while we are there, and you take me to all of the places you went to with your family and we even play soccer in front of the Eiffel Tower one night, for your old times sake.
But mostly we make love a few times a day and go get beautiful meals and I speak French to the waiters and you think it's **** We go to a little bakery down the street from us every morning and night and just have an obscene amount of baguettes in our room. We sleep with all of the windows open (it's summer) and the light of the Eiffel Tower is visible at night, far off in the distance.
Some nights, we make love on the balcony of the hotel and then just talk forever, and I'm so perfectly happy there in your arms on the balcony of our little quaint hotel in Paris just for the hell of it.
And I'm so ******* glad you're there with me, even if it's just in my head.
Feb 7, 2015
Feb 7, 2015 at 1:04 AM UTC
A little old man ordered an extravagant ice cream sundae. Glasses, striped short-sleeved collared button-down (outdated). I watch him as he eats it with a peaceful and innocent contentment. I can't help but smile to myself. He noticed me looking. He couldn't care less. He is himself; he's done with dreams and ambitions. All he needs is his ice cream sundae. I wonder if he's lived here his whole life. And now he frequents touristy places to avoid the familiar turf that evokes memories- or perhaps this is his turf- so much changed that it no longer produces bittersweet nostalgias. Tourists come and go.
I wonder what he thinks about- if it’s highly intellectual or if he simply dwells on his now-empty sundae bowl. Better the latter. Why dwell on the oddities of life when all you need is ice cream to make you happy? What a blessing to be old and happy; to care about nothing but your ice cream sundae. But what a tragedy that all we do in life is search, and in the end, all we were looking for was dessert!
May 26, 2015
May 26, 2015 at 11:39 AM UTC
*etymology extract: as was said, they'd read my poetry
on the front, among the billions, a few might tread,
from everyday Monday through to Sabbath,
thus said, archaeologically bound: Egypt, Josephus,
the nativity play, xylophone, and too much
indoctrination acquired to walk like a peacock,
and indeed more strut likening to a crow;
for indeed the waterfall of skulls, the dead sea
which reaches depths higher than peaks of architectural
adventure in man levelling mountains,
exploring sea depths and excavating depths
of the prized orbits: such restlessness never once
but countless times before; so soon forgotten
among the revision of partitioning, that nearer
Israel's resurrection on a foreign continent
than a neighbour's resurrected breath on the continent
concerned... leave unto Persia that book,
and unto Africa the judgement over Egypt...
but so your toying in global affairs is gluttonous in
sugars of hoped for sweeteners in applicability,
paying remnants of the economic enrichment i too remember,
20 to a room... 20 to a room... with baked beans soup
and white bread to send breadcrumbs home...
oh but my scottish compatriots haven't felt the full
**** of immigration, they haven't!*
why not talk of Kazimierz Prószyński
like you do concerning Auguste and Louis Lumière?
oh, i get it, ******* in the hood...
Europe is really foreign accepting the existence
of the once famed commonwealth,
as the present time, with the resurgence of
Israel, which can't be split equally, fathered
and equally brothered among the constituents
from the Baltic to the Black Sea...
from the median to the red...
best keep the sea lions bopping along with dear tourism
in the over-salted sea,
should the dead sea attract more sacrifice than the
touristy hill outside Jerusalem.
Jun 2, 2016
Jun 2, 2016 at 8:59 PM UTC
sitting here with a cup of coffee
and a beautiful view of the beach
watching all the idiots running by
(because in my opinion it's one of
the most touristy things you can do)
and I'm trying to sort things out
but it's not good enough, never is
and this fog rolls in, blocking my view
and it shows how little anything matters
we are all b sides standing on the edge of
nothingness
i guess i should lace up my running shoes.
Mar 29, 2017
Mar 29, 2017 at 9:19 AM UTC
western society has, what we call
an ambitious existentialism -
eastern society has, what we call
the expected existentialism -
oh, apologies for the big word,
i know how smart you are
having books for doorstops
with whiffs of the northern wind sometimes
pooping by a hello... but honestly,
the west is so ambitious and the east
so unambitious that we have
a billion Chinese and about a billion
variations of a McDonald's original advert
of: mm... i'm turkey minded to gulp
that **** in!
and stitched up like a diabetic on a diet!
hanky-tango-two-times of
a sneezing donkey's giddy-up toward Golgotha
sounds almost the same.
are you here for the touristy memorandum
hanging on your neck? me too,
i was about to jeopardise two thousand years
of human history with it, imagine! imagine
what an idiot i'd be if i'd actually gone along
with it!
Jun 20, 2016
Jun 20, 2016 at 10:20 PM UTC
I used to feel bad for you, and how your skin was always painted purple and black with bruises that weren't self-inflicted, I almost wanted to absorb some of your pain for myself so that you wouldn't have to feel it as much, but as time has passed and you continue to let people walk all over you like a touristy sidewalk and kick you like a pebble on a road, I realized you like to hurt, you want to hurt, and you want people to sympathize for your hurting, I have had so much trouble comprehending why you gain energy from the way my heart drops watching your tears do the same, and then it hit me, your pain is contagious, like an infectious disease, except you like to spread the illness. You like feeling pain. You like making people feel the way you do, because you can't cure it and you know they won't be able to either
Oct 9, 2014
Oct 9, 2014 at 10:35 PM UTC
Oh yes, oh yes, salams, hello, hi
Aha, oh yeah, oh my, oh my
My favorite dream places happen to be
coincidentally
ones that rhyme with the words
aye, aye, aye and bye, bye, bye
for I wish to fly
to divine Dubai
to showy Shanghai
to beautiful Brunei
and heavenly Hawaii
and last but not least
the land of the Thai
The only odd ones out in this rhyme scheme
of exotic favourite places of my dream
are touristy Turkey and Singapore
ah, I wrote this kinda' extempore.
So if I do go gallivanting
somewhat like Gulliver on his travels
these are the places I'd like to explore.
Ah, it's always great to travel
and geo atlas mysteries unravel
upon God's wide world to marvel
Going places to collect and bring back memories
A collection of curios and cherished souvenirs
As indeed whenever you bring back some exotica
you enhance your knowledge with those ephemera.
So guys I'd love to fly
to travel to Turkey and Thailand
Sojourn in Shanghai
depart for Dubai
holiday in hawaii
Board a flight to Brunei.
One has to try
to get into jetsetting style
act somewhat like the jet set
for frequent flyer mile.
This has been a poetic travelogue
for voyages are ever in vogue.
But whenever I can and if I have luck now
I know I could never tire of journeying
to Aligarh and Lucknow
For motherland India calls me like no other,
a place to hug my origins, beloved dad and mother.
Ah, only if there were no travel formalities
I could be sightseeing many more cities.
Without need of passports, ticket and visa
anyone could've travelled
to watch the Leaning tower of Pisa
or even the egyptian pyramids of Giza.
But for spiritual enlightenment and nourishment the mecca of thronging visitors flocking ,
I wish to frequently visit Mecca as a pilgrim,
It's the favourite sanctuary for every Muslim
So O' Tinkerbell, sprinkle me too with yer fairy pixie dust
so I too can fly, and satisfy, my spasmodic wanderlust
Dec 22, 2022
Dec 22, 2022 at 1:02 PM UTC
an elderly woman on the upper east side
leaves a red ring around a baby carrot
while gnoshing.
imagining Matisse cutting up fauve
confetti in his wheelchair, while he rolls
backward on a promenade.
then she lazily gropes at her neck,
observing a touristy swash--primed for
the annual rigging of Newtonian physics.
Dec 31, 2024
Dec 31, 2024 at 12:30 AM UTC