Off the Beaten Track

Lonely Planet

Our line of camera nomads roam,
To distant lands that mirror home.
Traditional cuisine for western mobs.
Offset with pizza’s and hotdogs.
Authentic sari's with Gucci specs.
Nike boots for mountain treks.
We follow touts that bleed us dry,
Consult our various travel guides.

But for those who crave a path unknown,
To those with brochures and mobile phones.
They’ll find their path most rugged and bleak,
And the destination that they seek,
May grant them their idyllic song.
That warm and friendly sing along.
Pleasant elders, a welcome fire.
The unflinching gaze of a curious child.

But not so lucky are some that roam,
To places hidden, far from home.
Jungles dense and uninviting.
Poisoned fruits, mosquitoes biting.
Tiny pockets where still there remains,
Tribal cultures still maintained.
Spared of global policies,
Our biblical standards and philosophies.

So the uninvited may just find,
A value system of a different kind.
Gods that sing a different song.
One deemed by our god as morally wrong.
And no matter how learned or judgment free,
Such travelers regard themselves be.
They’ll always find a certain line,
A line by which they are defined.
Their ingrained moral fabric they can never hide.
Certain practices they will never abide.
Their western hearts, they cannot deny.
It moulds their tongues and frames their eyes.

To a culture demanding of privacy.
Shelter from the tourist piracy.
Such travelers must be a most ghastly sight,
Evil spirits painted white.
Strange and ominous parasites.
Come to destroy their mortal lives.
Multiply in numbers and consume the fruit.
Then level the bare trees and tear out the roots.
Dig up the earth with giant mechanical beasts.
Cover the wreckage with cold cement sheets.
Infect their clean air with poisonous smog.
Indoctrinate their children. Destroy all their Gods!

And so the adventurous traveler would say,
That no global boundaries will get in his way.
He’ll follow a path to wherever he pleases.
Undeterred by such trivia as war and diseases.
And he may just fill his journal with beautiful stories.
Vast education. Archives of glory.

But that traveler may one day look under a stone.
And find out that some things are best left alone.
A valuable lesson that many have learned,
Those lucky enough to have returned.
For some, their final journal page,
Is tainted by anger, violent rage.
Of quaking earth, of wind and flood.

The lonely planet drenched in blood….