Heatwave
Summertime.
The hotel manager
polished his bifocals
then told the tourist
all about the locals.
What they are like
and how they behave
and what they do
to escape the heatwave.
They leave the city
and the unbearable heat,
go to the lakes
or some other retreat.
The month of August
is a period in which
many go on holiday,
especially the rich.
But there are those
who can’t get away;
they must wait on others
who have come to stay.
That the weather cools
is their fervent hope
and they also wonder
how the tourists cope.
© Luigi Pagano 2016
If only I had the means to be a tourist and suffer such indignities. I’d probably wind up as one of the help! A very real situational telling with details that draw your reader into the heat of an August holiday. Your ability to create rhyming verse is honed and incomparable, Ionicus.
Love that clever pic. Did you superimpose the thermometer on it, or find it as is and ready to go?
Niggle, niggle: should it be tourists in the last line? bel, the niggler 🙂
Thanks for your kind words, Bel.
I didn’t do anything clever about the picture, just found it and thought that it illustrated the situation very well.
I used ‘tourist’ as a generic term for travellers but you are right: grammatically it should be tourists.
I shall conform and edit accordingly.
Luigi x
Excellent piece Luigi, I gave up visiting Cities in the summer months after a visit to Athens one August….I thought we were going to die HaHa!
Mike
Hi Mike. Nice hearing from you. This year I took a short holiday at the beginning of September thinking it would be different but the heat was just as overwhelming.
Heatwaves are very short lived here in GB, usually followed by a wetwave. And yes, I guess one does have to be rich to holiday in August as prices rocket. Good one Luigi.
Val x
Hello Val.
We had a week of really high temperature in Como this year. The natives were praying for rain after months of dry weather. Finally this morning, on our departure, a torrential rain arrived.
As for going on holiday on a budget, it helps if one has relatives leaving abroad!
Definitely one of your better pieces with good tempo and more so for the short lines and simple rhyming scheme! Mitch
Thanks, Mitch. Your comment is greatly appreciated.