Choose another map, showing:

• North America
• Transatlantic
• The World

Other entries in Niagara Falls

ode to culture shock explained

A steamy night in Tehuantepec
Virgin lovers while away hours in a kiss
in a park.
A sunny Sunday in Toronto
I wonder if the passing people really don't see me
or just pretend
not to.
I chat with the woman in the April Acapulco market
before she sells me her mangoes.
I wait for my friends to pencil me in
for a coffee
in Canada.
I check my email instead of coinciding with friends
I communicate through messenger instead of with my heart.
While we sit down and drink
I reminisce about spinning to salsa.
I drive alone where I used to share a seat with a young mother
and her three small children
and a chicken
and sometimes a box of flowers or bags of vegetables.
The pool sits lifeless in the short and stifiling summer
while yellowtailed snappers swim in the turquoise of my memory.
I no longer watch people mill through the centre at a cafe.
No, where I live there are no cafes, nor a centre
nor people.
See, its all been replaced with cars and drive through coffee in paper cups.
No fascinating architecture nor vibrant colours.
There are no art galleries nor handicraft markets.
Neon lights and cheap souveniers are the main attraction.
If a room without books is like a body without a soul,
what does that make a city without a bookstore?
The most fertile agricultural lands continue to be paved
for wide roads and free parking, suburban sprawl and chemical lawns.
Casinos have created thousands of dead end jobs
and gambling addiction hotlines
while pension cheques get consumed by penny slots
and the grandchildren's futures are forgotten.
There's nowhere to see films that weren't made in Hollywood
and the Imax plays the same one every day.
Millions of flowers are planted
for drive-by tourists
and stop signs grace every corner.
Theres no health food store that actually sells food so lets do dinner at another mutinational franchise.
and close that historic spiritual centre while we're at it
(things like that get in the way of mafia development)
but no ones in a hurry.
I think I see why.
this is where i live.
please help me, i am sad.