Art Deco City Napier

O seaside Napier,
With street names like
Shakespeare, Dickens, Tennyson, and Milton
You inspire your guests,
to write poetry,
and think loftily –

unless they’re work-travel backpackers,
mostly from Germany,
who hand-roll ciggies,
and drink canned beer,
after a hard day’s work,
picking apples,
whilst they daydream,
with dirty hands,
of future fornication.

Your Art Deco buildings,
how they also inspire,
every mind to wonder,
how to describe,
in human language,
what Art Deco is.

How you remind of Ashland, Oregon,
sitting there,
being beautiful,
producing nothing,
importing everything,
and then raising the prices substantially,
for substantial tourists,
who have their shirts pressed,
and never drop the cutlery.

For this is where,
without a scoff,
men can wear red pants,
and a woman,
whilst drinking champagne,
al fresco,
at 1PM,
can regard her two Dalmatians,
on two pink leashes,
and think life’s normal.

You are a bubble,
lovely Napier,
and a happy one,
at that,
and we will miss you,
and your pedestrian street
with boutique shops,
and your quiz nights,
at your pubs,
where we won a bottle of wine,
with a lucky guess,
about the length of the border,
between Mongolia and China.

If we borrowed one of your boats,
we could sail right back to Seattle,
but for now,
quiet Napier,
we’ll take a bus,
and aim for busy Wellington.