A look at the modern world’s return toward tiki culture:

Tropical Escape
by Michael Romani

A masquerade of loosened ties
Relaxes into forgetting the rat race
The escapism of tropical alibis
Whispers acceptable excuses for feeling out of place

A turn to pay my own way
At the end of my every day
Fifteen dollars for a tropical drink
That will obliviate any need to think

Trader Vic echoes of another time
In a transportive journey out of this clime
Where and when smugglers don't get caught
It's an adventure of sorts to be store bought

When the world's nose is out of joint
Island culture will never disappoint
Like an emotional bomb shelter
To ride out the summer's gritty swelter

The progressive sense of go-go-go
Has its counterpoint in going slow
When big money, chrome and steel
Have at least momentarily lost their thrill

It's an existential threat
A little too familiar and yet
Feeling over worked and chronically stressed
This is too often the life of the smartly dressed

Smartphones and social media amplifies
The chatter of headlines and arguments in our eyes
Changed trappings stuck on discontent and anxiety
While our hearts scream out the need to simplify

This transforms into something vaguely Polynesian
In our mental images of sights once seen
Like tales of the South Pacific in a lost museum
We wish to retire there if only we live to see them

(c) June 8, 2018  Michael Romani
All Rights Reserved