Please click play to hear my spoken word of the poem to my original music
“Venice Midwestern” by Robin Saikia
Music and voice over by Karima Hoisan
She thought it would be magic:
the canals, the gondolas,
like a postcard’s laminated promise.
But here, the water smells —
a mix of fish guts and disinfectant,
and the breeze is damp, like the inside of a boot.
She wears her best smile,
but it’s like the air laughs at her.
Her map’s a soggy thing now,
crumpled in her hand —
so many alleys that curve back on themselves
like a joke she doesn’t get.
A gondola guy sings,
but it sounds more like a car alarm.
The buildings, sagging, tilted sideways,
look like they’re about to fall over—
but they don’t. They just stare,
vacant-eyed, like old men
who’ve seen too much,
or enough.
She had imagined romance,
but the gondola’s seat is sticky,
the water a murky green
that promises more than it delivers.
Her shoes are soaked,
and the pizza she ordered
is as flat as her hopes.
And Jim — poor Jim —
he’d whispered once, on the plane,
“Maybe this will ‘spark’ something, huh?”
But all that spark fizzled,
burned out by the damp, salty air.
The bed too small,
the sheets too heavy.
Venice, with its decaying beauty,
has made them tired,
the way a heavy meal makes you sleepy.
Her hand on Jim’s chest weighs as much as
that Murano paperweight.
They don’t talk about it —
sex, or the lack of it (or the paperweight) —
but the undeceived canals know it all
and echo it, in a customary ancient sigh.
She’ll write home:
“Venice was nice,”
but the word tastes sour,
like toothpaste in the back of her throat.
And who needs canals, really?
When you’ve got a truck in the driveway,
and Walmart.
And the soft ebb and flow of Jim snoring
to remind her
of what’s no longer there.
*Footnote: I was honored when Robin requested me to read his poem to my music:)
Digital Rabbit Hole 