Postcard Instructions Poem by Francis Poole

POSTCARD INSTRUCTIONS



Let us know the size of suite

With its treasure of amenities

And name of rich and famous nobody

In the elevator

Wearing red silk bathrobe with

Erect gold phallus

Embroidered on the chest.

Number of beggars waiting outside hotel

Behind barbed wire barriers.

How to order a cocktail in the local language.

Where to buy hand-carved toy pigs riding motorcycles

And what part of town has graffiti that reads

Paradise is wherever you are not.

Let us know if you find

The street of gold sellers

And the main square

With its God of Gastronomy statue

Its belly bloated like a summer's corpse

And the immense garbage pits

Swarming with shoeless children

And buzzing with billions of flies

On the city's western rim.



--Francis Poole