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Antino Art Feb 2018
South Florida
if you were a body part,
you’d be an armpit.

You’d be a bulged vein
on the side of a forehead
forever locked in a scowl
behind sunglasses.

You speak the language of horns
middle name, finger
blood type, combustible

You're a melting ***
that's boiled over the lid
sweating salt water at the brows
eyes red as the brake lights
in the maddening brightness,
you’re torrential daylight
heating nerves like greenhouse gasses
waiting for a reason to explode.

You’re a tropical motilov cocktail
no one can afford
2 parts anger, 1 part stupidity
full of yourself in a souvenir glass with a toothpick umbrella
You're all image

You’re all talk: the curse words
breaking out the mouths
of the angry line mob at Starbucks in the morning
You’re the indifferent silence
in the arena at the Heat games leaving early,
showing up late
due to the distance
from Brickell to Hialeah,
West Palm to Pompano
the gap between the entitled and the under-paid
a skyline of condos in a third world country
You’ve always been foreign to me.

You’re winterless, no chill
you attract only hurricanes
and tourists,
shoving anything that isn’t profitable
out of the way like post-storm debris
into the backyards of the Liberty City projects,
onto a landfill off the side of the Turnpike
Hide it beneath Bermuda grass,
line it with palm trees
if only conceal your cold blooded nature:
I see you.
You are overrun with iguanas,
blood-******* mosquitos
hot-headed New York drivers
not afraid to get hit

You get yours, Soflo
and you'll go as low
as the flat roofs of your duplexes
and the wages that can barely pay the rent to get it
latitude as attitude
temper as temperature
if you were a body part
I swear you’re an *******

south of the brain, one hour
in all directions,
I’d find you.
You’d impose your way
onto my flight to the Philippines,
to Seattle, to Raleigh
You’d follow me like excess baggage,
like gravity,
bringing me back when asked where I'm from:

That area north of Miami, I’d say
(the suburbs, but whatever, we are hard in our own way)
I'd show you off on their map
like some badge of grit,
certificate of aggression
I know how to break a sweat
walk brisk, drive evasive
ride storms in my sleep
I know you, I’d say,
“He’s a friend of mine.”
and I’d watch them light up
and remember
the postcards you've sent them
of the sunrise,
welcoming brown immigrants
onto white sand beaches
You were foreign to us
yet raised us as your own
in the furnace of your summers
iron on iron, the forger striking
softness into swords
built for survival
I'm made of you

my South Floridian temper
cools down
in your ocean breeze

if you were a body part,
you'd be a part of me
a socked foot in an And1 sandal
pressed to the gas pedal
as my drive takes me north
of your borders, far from home

I see you
in the rear view mirror,
tail-gating
like a sports car on the exit ramp
the color of the sun.
Trevor Gates Jan 2013
It’s good to see you again.

We’ve been expecting you
Please
Sit.

Now…

Lights!
Orchestra!
Curtains!


Bringing forth nighttime lore, the charming chamberlain of Libertine plays
Summoning forth demonic myths, the illustrious weaver of unspoken entities
Dancing on memories, the enchanting fairy of skeletal trees
Sizzling behind magenta curtains, the voluptuous seductress of throbbing blood
Laughing at the potluck, the swollen headmaster of flab
Killing in the alleys, the inscrutable Ripper of Jack
Fornicating in the wild in the dragon’s keep, the ***** of Babylon

Swell the strings!
Blast the horns!
The cast is assembled

The symphony of sensational voyeurism
Yes, you in delight
Don’t deny your
Sacred rite
That’s right



Join my dear

Don’t be shy

Ascend the stairs

And come on stage



Good



Take my hand and venture now through the broken mirror of Assyria
The dunes of sands
Mounded and layered beneath the crisp blue sky

Not a single cloud
Not a single soul

Except for us

My dear
Feel the sand

It’s cool to the touch

The wind encircles your lush hair

The air feels and smells like the breeze of the sea

Where Athenian, white houses line the shores of this desert-sea world


Look up into the blue sky

Witness the open dome in the center

Above our head


Past the blues sky dome is the space between spaces.

Orange silk stars and red trimmed planets
Violet smeared nebulae and green morphing galaxy clusters

Float up to the top of the open space dome in the center of the sky

Reach out and extend your hand

As you touch, the area between this world and the next, ripples spread out from the imagery of the universe.

You touch water in the form of visual, ethereal paradise

The ripples of time expand like the vibrations of sound across the sky

Painting a new canvas of dripping oils and melting clocks



Close your eyes.

Your body hovers in the air

Far from the ground

And far from the person everybody knows


No matter how much a person perceives to know about another, there will be a part us that no one will ever comprehend.



Because to completely absorb the entirety of another life

memories

personality

thought process

dreams

Soul



Is incomprehensible

Inconceivable

Futile



A new world attrition
Through masturbatory perdition

A raging, unquenchable and suffering desire that plagues

The bold

The young

The old

The naive

The smart

The swift

The innocent

The ******

The addicts

The self-proclaimed purists

The self-proclaimed “good people”

“innocent people”

“trusted people”



We are all what we live for: a lie

A lie that consumes the norm

With invisible abnormalities

We are the blind

The deaf

The mute

The chained

The ignored

The punished

The poor

The dumb

The frightened

The dead



The end





Thank you for being here once again.  None of this couldn’t be possible without: Clive Barker, Iron Maiden, headphones, batman, duplexes, Salvador Dali, The hour of the Wolf, folding chairs, wool blankets, Silicone *******, chocolate icing, Bruce Campbell, 28 Days Later, true love, true grit, The seventh seal, black widow spiders, Vishnu and anyone else I forgot to mention.



Please come again.
Yes, yes I know you are probably asking, "How many of these entries are there?" . I couldn't say really, but hey stick around and found out. Let's see what my mind has to offer.  Probably not much, but is it quality or quantity that should out weigh each other? Boing! Hey look, Pizza.

No need to fret, protesters outside my window, this is now a declaration of war to your lives (or is it?), just a free verse/form writing exercise.  Till we meet again my Peeps, minions and droogs.
Michael Tobias Sep 2013
I will make a fangle of mechanisms,
a creature with iron snouts
and concrete aortas.

Its fevered howl will wake the duplexes
perched on sloped land,
built from collected tins and bottle caps.

Boys sooted in grief will balk like ravens,
chew sweet dip, and spit,
but never reach the foreman’s gate.

They’ll crave a tavern with antlers as chandeliers
where a black flame burns
on the brim of a zinfandel.

But tonight they’ll gristle through streets
to a stale room
where fluorescent lights blanch a young widow’s skin.

Basic cable ministries will flick and dim
in the homes of the wigged ladies who wait for them—
the howl keeps them

breathless, each of them fearing
the slow swallow from a snake’s mouth
to its furnace.

— The End —