Saturnalia of the Seas




When the trumpet sounded everything
on earth was prepared
and Jehovah distributed the world
to Coca Cola, Inc., Anaconda,
Ford Motors, and other entities;
entailed tides and saltwater currents to SSL
marketing itself to the jubilant percussion
of steel drums and sunblock-slicked pleasure
of Calypso and dark rum, and when swelled
with the takeover of independent cruise lines,
demanded marine infrastructure and tithes
from the tourist-desperate ports of developing nations
where sweat-shop labourers long for the freedom
of the red smokestack conga line employing unregulated
overtime and tip skimming - but room and board, all
medical expenses paid - so experienced diasporics flock
from the South China Sea: slender bar staff females
swinging waist-length locks, male machinists, paint-spattered
sailors and disaffected galley workers grateful for toil -
and pale English-speakers lured by cash-paid earnings
cycle through Spas, Casinos and Duty Free shops -
the UK, True North, South Africa and the Eastern Block -
marginalized laissez-faire ants hustle, hustle, hustle
as obnoxious vacationers down cocktails with secret
extortionary fees, and after eat-all-you-can buffet,
belt out ear-numbing karaoke, serenading late nite
body gyrating discotheque affairs
under flags of convenience Saturnalia disembarks,
vessels brim-filled with souvenir-glutted tourists,
Cadillac-cushioned backs turned from local sunsets,
from Indigenous eyes following their departure,
willing the return of fun ships to their paradisal horizons.