"coppertone" poems
Glistening crowds shuffle in detached cadence
Sweating long necks on a production conveyer
The boardwalk
Pungent saltwater and fried dough coalesce
Ocean meets carnival
Teen screams and seagull shrieks
A multitude of color variation
Red to black
A scent of Coppertone and Noxzema
To ease the pain of the vain and pale
Summer at Happy Hampton Beach
Arcade upon arcade
Clinking bells and whirly sounds
“You're a Winner!”, the mechanical voice screams
Summer fades as do the summer flings, until next year
Jul 12, 2014
Jul 12, 2014 at 7:01 AM UTC
How can I ever tell you that
in the 21st century,
as innocent as you are,
you will be sexualized.
It started with
one peak under that skim cloth
that made you an icon
Halloween costumes
turned your baby face into
the mask of a "babe"
There are no more dogs
struggling to tear your short shorts
now only mutts scattering clubs
hands dangling onto your belt loops
as if they were in the middle of a hurricane
You, Coppertone Baby, didn't know any better
you were minding your own **** business
vacationing on the beach
when somebody had the audacity to snap a picture
of your ***
Sweet little girl,
you are us.
You are society's expectations of innocent women
so easily willing to publicize our bodies
printed on billboards
sold in magazines
You put your hair up for vanity
but we tie our hair back to avoid
violent hands
You, Coppertone Baby
will never be known as Cheri,
just like today,
we are branded into the clothes made to hide our bodies
but couldn't do it enough
we are the voiceless
We are the shadows hiding behind anatomy
we are nip-slips
we are on the front cover
of ******* magazines
You grew up not expecting it
merely existing
only knowing the words,
"mommy and daddy."
Welcome, Coppertone Baby,
to the present, not so much a gift
where your first words are now,
"thank you"
the camera is constantly pointed
constantly asking you to sit pretty
you will learn to avoid beaches
and only buy the clothes
that suffocate your skin
I know you were meant to sell sunscreen
but how can I ever buy your product
if I can't even hardly
go outside.
Oct 14, 2014
Oct 14, 2014 at 7:54 PM UTC
the rustling of the leaves in the trees
the audible tremble
of a collective chill
sounds just like the beach
my front porch
a shining metropolitan shore
the sun seems to soften into welcoming;
a different sun
that doesn’t scowl hotly over apartment complexes
and make liquid of asphalt and people
a benevolent warmth
you can only get
out of the city
the air rubs itself in coarse salt
and Coppertone
this glass of water
in my hand
may well be the ocean
the shift in my lap
the waves
a floating leaf
a boat
adrift on cerulean seas
the children laughing and playing here
are the same children
laughing and playing there, too
i am reminded that everything
can be given a new life
if you tell a wild heart
of an ordinary thing
if i just
close my eyes
a beach
is never far away
Jun 1, 2023
Jun 1, 2023 at 6:33 AM UTC
Love me for who I am
Skim milk skin with
Pink floating in
Coppertone hair and
Trident gum snap
Wax figure hands riddled with blue snake veins
Crushed broken toes and
A metal belly button
Liquified speech
And self important bangs
Long eyed glances and
Sun melted shoulders.
Love me for what I am.
No one will be the wiser
Sep 30, 2012
Sep 30, 2012 at 10:28 PM UTC
I feel you lurking in the shadows
of my
mind
and
heart
and
soul
A benign
reminder
sends me into orbit
out of space and time...
coppertone coated in salty perspiration...
a soundbite about weather on the other side of the country...
the crunch of pad thai.........
And there you are with
your nose pressed into the trap door
hidden deep inside me
Feb 11, 2014
Feb 11, 2014 at 9:22 AM UTC
People don't understand what it means,
how it feels.
When you're laying in the rain,
they just don't understand.
Letting your face soak in the muddy grass,
they don't know how it feels.
Wanting to sink in,
be swallowed whole,
suffocate.
Your body is waiting but your mind is already there.
And when you finally sink,
you're back on the surface,
like Sisyphus,
pushing a big ****** boulder of regret and pain.
You're soakin' in the sun,
I'm sinking in the mud,
you've got Coppertone,
I've got blood.
That warm copper taste,
on the tip of your tongue,
man, it's electrifying.
Holding your breath,
hoping your head pops off.
Yeah, you're losing it,
we're losing it.
Or were we already lost?
I thought you knew me,
I thought I knew you.
You thought we were all the same,
but the sun doesn't touch us all.
You're soakin' in the sun,
I'm sinking in the mud,
you've got Coppertone,
I've got blood.
You're soakin' up the sun,
I'm sinking in the mud,
I'm sinking in the drunk,
I'm sinking in my blood.
Sep 4, 2017
Sep 4, 2017 at 1:59 PM UTC
Sixteen,
skin baked with brine and chlorine,
Top 40 hissing in my Walkman.
The girl found me first,
barefoot on the sandy trail,
tears spilling, pointing back to the sea.
A jellyfish sting, she couldn’t say it,
just clung to my leg like kelp.
Her mother rose from the dunes,
black bikini, tan lines,
two beach bags gnawing her wrists.
coconut oil, salt, chipped Jackie O shades.
She sighed, called the girl dramatic,
drifted home on scraping sandals.
Their world leaked into ours,
adjacent green bungalow
with fronds rattling like bones,
oranges sagging into white fuzz,
ATV ruts torn through the yard.
Rob polishing his Camaro,
coughing through pollen and Skoal,
swearing he saw a gator the size of a boat
slide into the canal at dusk.
She’d wander up, black bikini,
thighs shining,
shadow falling across my pool chair.
Hey, you see my kid? she’d ask,
leaning close,
the scent of Coppertone
and Marlboro Gold
fogging my thoughts.
I’d shift polite, church-boy manners,
No, ma’am,
She’d grin
at the clumsy hormones
rising off me
like steam.
Those nights were bonfires,
oranges softening to flies,
Rob coughing in his driveway
while the pool light hummed and flickered.
Her shadow swam on the walls,
slick as a gator sliding into dusk.
Aug 4, 2025
Aug 4, 2025 at 12:56 PM UTC
Under your
big nippled
tops.
delicious back
somersault
tumbles,
tickling my
chin as you
would
fly by
over head.
trampoline
spike
bounces
off my
Coppertone
brown
belly ,
as you
would
melt
over me
and my
thighs
applaud....
our passion
was a
three
ring circus
then.
contortionist,
soul grapplers
and sin.
and what
is left
to us
now but
scars
still
unreconciled,
inside
and out,
cuts unkind
that
validate
the ticket
and price
of our
love's admission
we each
paid full ticket
that summer.
to be
even for
the shortest
of times,
under your
big nippled
tops.
the greatest
show on
earth.
Sep 18, 2018
Sep 18, 2018 at 2:27 PM UTC
Caution taken (lathering
exposed epidermis with sun screen)
against harmful innocuous
rich (Times New Roman)
12 font ask tick sun yet sen sate)
refulgent radiant balm
unequivocal panacea medicinal luxuriant calm
on par with a old
sister wives tale remedy me late mom,
would magically construe
to alleviate home sickness qualm
post pledge initiation invocation befriending
Jason the Argonauts and Major Tom
dizzyingly zipping thru space
in search of the golden fleece,
(which acquisition
ranked as a no brainer)
which recollection, sans above exploit flashed
(at greased lightening speed) this peace
full May afternoon, a pitch perfect spring day,
one adequately oxygenated
air supply crowded house
legendary fete of the rising son momentarily
sol limb lee flared concluding with reverberating
(though decades elapsed
since fortuitous galactic heralded
world wide web panegyric
broadcast cosmos wide),
then with just as quick
memorialized recollection
prominently recalled,
said remembrance as things past
vis a vis denouement across Universe
with **** lifelong (black hole sun hopping)
capping achievement did surcease.
Ah...such blinding realistic provocation sparked
via pure imagination
upon one earthly terrestrial beast
Sunkist soaking raiment sequestered
within corner nook decreased
with onset of dusk, a mind bending
dreamy experience least
expected while nonchalantly fantasies take flight
basking (with robins)
in an angulated nook sky height
upon premises of Highland
Manor Apartment out of sight
from the buzzer (I may as well be
a million miles away),
thus poetic justice end trite.
May 21, 2018
May 21, 2018 at 10:10 PM UTC
Why should it make me sad,
to watch the wind move through the leaves
of an elm tree in late May,
a great green cloud against the bluest sky.
Or to smell the sun heat the asphalt,
and tiny globes of sweat and Coppertone on my skin -
the golden smell of summer,
of knees skinned and healed and skinned again,
of sun-faded flags,
red white and blue dancing mounted on neighbors' porches,
neatly folded and forgotten the rest of the year.
Or to sit in my backyard
in the receding light with what is left of the day,
and listen in utter longing to the katydids
humming their summer incantation.
And wish, that if I could only bottle the sound
as I once did the magic of fireflies,
that repairing loneliness was as easy as opening jar.
Jun 2, 2016
Jun 2, 2016 at 10:47 PM UTC
I dreamt about you
my senses enslaved by your
scent
still a combo of coppertone and spearmint
touch
commanding
taste
salty surprise
sound
the purr that rumbles from the back of your throat
and yes, even
sight
eyes still a-twinkle
Oct 12, 2015
Oct 12, 2015 at 12:00 PM UTC
(Apologies to T.S. Eliot)
I
The scorching noonday settles down,
The scent of Coppertone on naked backs.
At the beach.
The lukewarm beer and paper sacks
Of gritty snacks
Packed early when the day began
Are now declined by sunburnt throngs
Who toss the refuse toward the can
But miss,
Delighting eager gulls that plunge
Headlong
To dive in screeching glee for treats
Not caring that the eats
Are full of grunge.
They feast in bliss
On rye and Swiss.
Soon, hungry, blistered bathers stiffly stand
Now mindful of the quantity of sand
Inside their shorts and thongs.
And then the stiff walk to the pier
To find a shower and cold beer.
Jan 23, 2016
Jan 23, 2016 at 5:18 PM UTC
Coppertone
spearmint
sweat
(that tastes of gin)
Brewed and bottled
under the bar lights
May 24, 2023
May 24, 2023 at 1:12 AM UTC
Yo so many pretties out chea, tryna be the baddest ***** of the year,
So many tears I see from the sweat, can't count on happiness,
If the closest thing to money, is being the realist, y'all ain't feeling this,
Tryna get a ***** to hear this, but they'll take it as a diss,
Can't see over the diamonds that bliss, ever since I was sunkissed,
I knew my life, was ****** over, hard to stand tall, and be a soldier,
End times is near, have no fear, angels swarming, demons cornered,
Pay attention the laws is written, why y'all lounging around, ain't listening,
To the sweet nothing, fighting over material **** I see the monopoly pit,
It all falls down, born with nothing so I'll die with nothing,
Must be a pain to glutton, then all of sudden, they stay buying our rights,
While they got you focused on the black white stereotypes,
Peeping the game, that was told by Albert Pike despite,
The rawness of evilness, I take in and slowly progress,
My mind no time, to chase money, cuz it'll always run away,
Collection of souls, yo it's time to pay, the grim reaper ain't got nothing to say,
Only to repeat the same madness everyday
Once they take you away,
This dedicated to coppertone ******
White ******
Mexican ******
All y'all colored mofos
Y'all ain't exempt
Everything is ****** prepared
For the rumours of war
Know laws being signed as we speak
G'yeahh
Mar 6, 2022
Mar 6, 2022 at 9:08 AM UTC
Her cheeks golden apples
Voice a hushed whisper
She smells like coconut Coppertone and sunshine
Her cotton candy lipgloss is sticky on my lips
Tanned skin salty from the surf
Smooth and soft like a puppy’s belly
Blonde hair sun-streaked, warm
Stomachs flip-flopping with teen-crush happiness
Gotta go…
Why?
I know.
Hate it though.
So we linger
To watch the surf swallow the sun
Feb 4, 2020
Feb 4, 2020 at 10:37 AM UTC
under your
big tops.
delicious back
somersault
tumbles,
tickling my
chin as you
would
fly by
over head.
trampoline
spike
bounces
off my
Coppertone
brown
belly ,
as you
would
melt
over me
and my
thighs
applaud....
our passion
was a
three
ring circus
then.
contortionist,
soul grapplers
and sin.
and what
is left
to us
now but
scars
still
unreconciled,
inside
and out,
cuts unkind
that
validate
the ticket
and price
of our
love's admission
we each
paid full ticket
that summer.
to be
even for
the shortest
of times,
under your
big tops.
the greatest
show on
earth.
Jun 5, 2019
Jun 5, 2019 at 10:20 AM UTC