Looking for Gauguin long ago
Club Med’s rich arses sneer at my backpack.
Pour quoi? Would cut-rate adventure scare them?
On the ferry’s upper deck a huge black
man I recognise dazzles in, ahem,
medals, peaked cap, tasselled braid, Papa Doc’s
son, Baby Doc, Haiti’s ruthless ruler
flanked by musclemen to Moorea’s docks.
Prices inflated, I spent my moolah
getting here, no hotel, roughing it cheap.
Young, encamped, I drink the grandeur of peaks,
sexy isles that lured a French banker, keep
seeing signs, his name, used. The rip-off reeks
of what’s wrong with blind hunting of dollars,
my jackpot; this canvas, light, rich colours.