Cannibal Paul Our Intrepid Tour Guide Leads us Into the Jungle and Usually has a more Interesting Day Today he toted Three Tourists from Toulouse, two from Toledo One awning salesman from Melbourne To Tell them Don’t Lift the Rocks Poisonous Snakes Don’t swim in the Ocean Deadly Jelly Fish Don’t Breath close to Those Plants The spores will make you sick And The Usual – the Rainforest-is-a-Fragile-Thing Lecture Cannibal Paul Usually leads Groups of Dedicated Doctors into those Remote Spots that we see in films or Crocodile Episodes And he Alone can Tell these Important Doctors What to Do Because Cannibal Paul Knows everything – Look at That Iguana That Flying Fox Strangler Vine Flesh Eating Plant – his favorite Cannibal Paul knew the names Of the crew who worked on the film Welcome to Woop Woop We did not make that up Cannibal Paul remembers when Port Douglas Now the Carmel of Queensland But with more Rain on the Off-Season was no more than a Bar and Bait shop Randomly placed at the edge Of the Bay He does not live in town Cannibal Paul earns his money by searching for Exceptional Dive spots in New Guinea Using little more than a Machete and a bag of Beetle nuts and a handful of Cannibal Vowels He negotiates the access through the Village, Land and People with suspicious diets The best way he explains To negotiate with Cannibals Bring a bag of beetle nuts to share eat some yourself (nasty things) and sit and chat endlessly about everything except the business at hand He always secured his contract One can’t help but wonder what a Bad Day Is like in the Cannibal Jungle. He did not say Here We pull up to a stretch of flat green tucked Against the thick Density of the Forest This is the Most Unusual Best Ice Cream for only $4.00 for three scoops Cannibal Paul has never married.

I think Cannibal Paul deserves more than just a note in my journal Because no one reads the travel journals of another person I don’t read my own. They exist to be filed Travel journals are just like photo albums Except a journal prevents that inevitable question That stops the smooth flow of narrative: who was that to the left of mother was he someone we knew? or was that the waiter? Who took this picture? Did we get the camera back? But in a travel journal when you write the landscape was so beautiful or stunning or sensational or whatever inadequate adjective your fumbling mind came up with at the time in the face of something foreign There is no corresponding picture to add verisimilitude to your claim of breathtaking But I dream that someday The journal the story about Cannibal Paul will keep me warm at night when I’ve forgotten everything Short Term - Overwhelmed by Daily Life.