On the last night of our cruise I cracked open a beautiful, leather-bound journal Dr. Wife got me on one of her discount shopping excursions. I’d been meaning to do some writing about our trip in it, or to jot down some haiku (my preferred poetic form when composing verse). I came up with a few haiku while sitting in the Solarium while a group of rambunctious kids played ping pong just outside (I heard an adult chide them for “crawling around on the floor like animals”). I guess I’m used to writing while kids are being noisy from years of creating from my classroom right next to the gym.

Anyway, here is the first of a few installments of cruise haiku.

Late Night Pizza

Last night of our cruise
Last night to stuff my face with 
Specialty pizza.

Belize City: A Neglected Child

Belize---a let down
I thought the British would do
Better than a swamp.

Jamestown was a swamp.
So is Washington, D.C.
But they developed.

Belize City's stuck,
Swamped with the crocodiles---
Absentee landlords.

This is empire?
Concrete bunkers, flooded streets?
A neglected child.

Princess Margaret---
I had high hopes for Belize.
So much potential.

I was really, really hoping Belize City would be awesome, or at least unique, but it was pretty underwhelming. Apparently, that’s a common experience for cruisers. The “Princess Margaret” is a reference to her visit to the city, as well as the waterfront street she rode down on her way. The city really feels like an outpost of the British Empire that failed to develop the way other former colonial possessions did.

More cruise (and airport) poetry to come. I’ll also continue work on editing and compiling and formatting Offensive Poems: With Pictures this week now that we’re back and I’ll have access to my PC.

Happy Monday!

—TPP