Sunwing Hotel, Thailand. Photo by Angela Lansbury.
I'm dreaming of next holiday
When I can simply laze all day
In the best hotel we'll afford
Where none of us is ever bored
I dream of holidays long past
Prepare for feasting with a fast
I do not need to buy more clothes
Where last year's went, God only knows
And while I think of what might be
My mind hunts through my memory
I censor problems, right wrongs
My mind only plays happy songs
I do not think of hammer toes
I do not think of buzzing mosquitos
I do not think of delays and dirt
Broken limbs, strains, stains, blisters, hurt
The shop sells everything you lack
A hundred things you didn't pack
You need sun glasses, pills, a mac
It's all too heavy to carry back
You have to search through all the tat
For gifts for those who fed your cat
The prices prove which goods are finer
Although worldwide, it's all from China
Think - swim around a swimming pool
Then ice cold drinks will keep me cool
I'll read, how slowly time will pass
We'll sit sunbathing on green grass
Children squeal in a special pool
It's even more fun than their school
Well watch with one eye from afar
Until it's time to call a car
On their big balcony we meet
See sea at sunset, busy street
I'm dressed in white shells, Thail silk best
Look fine to dine, then huge bed rest
A table by a seaview window
Candles cast a romantic glow
The room's arches, murals, impress
Each server's sparkling national dress
The soup sipped, tasty, names are strange
Fruit colours carefully arranged
I'll take more photos with my phone
Re-live highlights when I get home.
In pictures of tropical lands
The palm trees lean across cream sands
Hammocks sway by cute, painted huts
No fear of falling coconuts
In dreamlands, the tough grass is greener
Distant, dirty streets look cleaner..
'though not as perfect as it seems
The past looks perfect in my dreams.
-ends-
I changed In dreamlands all the grass is greener, which flows well and has lots of sublt irony, but my revised version is more specific. Tough grass (in Singapore). Singapore is cleaner, but uniquely, everywhere else is dirty, apart from Disneyland. And five star hotels. Antywhere you are paying more than 100 dollars a day without food and lodging is clean.
I changed 'the dirty streets look so much cleaner', adding the word distant.
Good in parts, says my husband. Not the holiday, the poem.
