CALI-TIKI

Submitted by reader David McGimpsey in 1999...

: : Aloha Mai Tai! : :

: : Picked up Mai Tai on St. Lawrence Street—just great. My bro & I are huge Tiki-nuts. This postcard & enclosed poem are from a Tiki adventure in California. Hope you can use the poem in a future issue (?). I’m a “real” writer for what it’s worth—have 2 books out & working on next. : :

CALI-TIKI

In San Diego’s Bali Hai, a fishbowled Blue Curaçao thing;

a sweet push toward Tijuana paramecium,

a brief jardinerie with potable orchids

overlooking Pearl Harbor-bound destroyers.

At San Francisco’s Tonga Room, rainfall indoors

while Fairmounters happy houred in Tahitian breeze;

buffeteers sheltering underneath bamboo thatches

as the floating orchestra played “Jungalero” and “Sunken City.”

Ola Los Angeles and Sunset Blvd’s tight Tiki-Ti

feuling Los Feliz glamoramas; nights in white cotton,

betting their industry-ready bodies will survive

through a wall of gin and tamales.

Bahooka! The idol-head is watching,

making horrible sounds (unpacifica).

Bahooka! Love it up sweet and sour. Bahooka!

Ginger-snapped lips. Bahooka! Bahooka!

David McGimpsey

Montreal, QC, Canada