Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Nat Lipstadt Nov 2013
Unreality: Thanksgiving Miami Style

It is 70 degrees, afternoon,
sunny Miami winter style.
Nike shorts, flip flops,
polo shirt white,
music, pandora, and
no place he
needs to be.

the collected works and
worries, left behind,
the boy, and he is taking
it to the limit,
wanting a day of no cares,
one more time.

yet, recollecting, writing
impertent, dissatisfied,
no reason, none that I can
irrationally explain.

previous night,
my eyes have
seen the
second-coming.

everybody smiles
happy, looking fit,
tight black dresses
the law of the land.
food flows like wine,
wine flows like water.

lose track of the numbers,
glasses of Cortese di Gavi,
cold and white refilled
in the Miami heat,
exactly, how old am I,
and where
my eyes should
not be staring,
bodies intended
to maim,
after they
**** you.

it is a long-short tale,
how it came to be,
that I am living thanksgiving
in the unreality of Miami style.

was supposed be at the
head of the table carving,
giving secret tastes to
numerous grandchildren,
multiple dogs,
defrosting after the
Macy's Day Parade.
my children, their
kith and kin.
that was supposed to be
my New York reality,
at the head of the table.

divorce, monkey wrench,
I am in a different state,
a different table, a
welcome bystander,
but her love,
my love,
has brought me,
to unseasonal places,
higher and higher,
where I am welcomed
as her man.

not a bad unreality,
but still someone has torn
off a piece of me,
a tasty combo of
sad and guilt,
that I ******* up,
which is why this
writing is my re-righting
the ship of perspective.

maybe I am dreaming
of what was never,
could have been,
should of been,
kidding myself, with an idyll,
the unreality of an idol,
though I vague recollect,
there were meals like that.

think this is my fourth trip here,
sort of, almost a tradition.
BobbyDylan, he reminds
what that woman,
done for me,
been doing to me.

"I was in another lifetime
one of toil and blood,
when blackness was a virtue
and the road was full of mud
I came in from the wilderness
a creature void of form.

"Come in" she said
"I'll give you shelter
from the storm".


so she did,
a new reality born.
so semi-sad poem, but
happy thanks to give,
for this day,
new family
embracing, and I am
recollecting,
read somewhere,
you cannot be thankful
for having,
only for giving.

Thanksgiving

Not
Thanks-having
Thanks-receiving

New Reality: Thanksgiving Miami Style.
(Published in Miami Herald on May 26, 2014 Brigitte Jacobs Arnold
Obituary Guest Book View Sign ARNOLD, BRIGITTE JACOBS, 78, MIAMI. Services will be held at 7:00 pm and a viewing from 12:00 pm to 8:00pm at Maspons Funeral Home located at 3500 SW 8th Street, Miami Florida 33135 Wednesday May 28th.)


Don’t ask me why but
I went online this afternoon.
Read the Miami-Herald obituaries.
And not just the Biggies:
Maya Angelou at 86 and
A one hundred year old Herb Jeffries.
Of course we knew Maya,
Her caged bird singing
Softly in our souls,
But may not be aware of Herb Jeffries.
A former singer in the Ellington band,
Herb was known as the Bronze Buckaroo,
In a series of all-black 1930s Westerns--
His nickname evoking
His racial identity,
Quite muddled, flexible.

Although both sad passages to be sure,
It was neither Maya nor Herb
Triggering my tender tears.
But the obituary of:
ARNOLD, BRIGITTE JACOBS, 78, MIAMI,
Known as Oma, Mutti and Mama.
Well, not exactly the Brigitte obit,
My tears for her long-lived mother,
Brigitte’s mother, durable & abiding,
Still breathing at 97:
Hildegard Wolle.
Reading Brigitte’s bio—
German born, Berlin student,
Singer-fashionista &
Proud, naturalized
American citizen—
I can’t stop thinking about Hildegard.
As if the woman didn’t already
Have more than her share of trouble
On this planet nearly a century,
Having already lost her
Grandson Roland, and now,
Her daughter.
Something wacky is going on here.
Some long-distance life lesson
Being applied here.
Poor Hildegard: ungifted with Alzheimer’s,
Suffers crystal distant memories,
Some really bad karma
Stored up in past lives.
David Nelson Apr 2010
First Kiss (Manchester to Miami)

Rachel was a 19 year old student who attended the
Royal Northern College of Music, located in Manchester UK.
Manchester was considered the arts, media, higher education
and commerce mecca of north central England. Bordered by the  
Cheshire plain to the south, and the Pennines mountain range
to the north and east. The famous River Mersey ran along the
southern side of Manchester. Rachel was packing for winter
holiday with some of her classmates, to the warm beaches of
Miami Florida, for a week long stay in the sun, far from the
often dreary weather that settled over the UK this time of year.  
Not only was Rachel looking forward to the warm weather and
sunny skies but she was looking forward to meeting up with Daniel.

Daniel was a 40 something musician, beach bartender, handyman,
who lived just outside of Miami. They had met on a poetry website
seven months prior, and had established a warm friendship.
They communicated almost daily threw emails, chat sites
and through poetry exchanges. Their friendship had become
more romantic in the last month or so, talking that silly love talk
that new lovers used, and Rachel finished off every meeting with the
initials AKTY at the end. AKTY stood for angel kisses to you,
as Daniel liked to refer to her as his angel. they both were very
excited about the chance to see each other, face to face.

Rachel knew that the majority of Daniels poetry was slanted
toward the romance side, and she knew from their conversations
that he seemed to be educated, gentle and romantic. She was,
they were, both looking forward to spending an evening together,
holding hands,caressing each other, looking into each others eyes,
and..... that first kiss. Kiss kiss kiss kiss

hard rock guitars, lights and smoke

Kiss, that first kiss, this is what, loves all about    
kiss, your sweet kiss, makes me go crazy, scream and shout
your kiss, that angel kiss, can't live with out it, you drive me mad
one kiss, just one kiss, from your sweet lips, blows my mind real bad

don't know how I got by before you
never want to try it no never again
my darlin angel I adore you,

since I met you you know i've been

crazy, I've gone crazy, just can't get enuff, of you sweet baby
dreaming, got me dreaming, every night baby, I don't mean maybe
every kiss, like your first kiss, sets me ablaze, you know it takes me higher
another kiss, I want another kiss, turn the flames up like a funeral pyre  

don't wanna try to get along without you
never want to try it no never again
my darlin angel I adore you,
since I met you been waiting for that first kiss

Gomer LePoet
in a stand
your ground
open carry
libertarian
paradise

Miami Gardens,
the capitol of
stop and frisk
looms as the
shape of things
to come

it doesn't
happen
all at once

it stealthily
creeps into
once wholesome
homesteads

it arrives
emaciated
always starved
for more

stark stiletto eyes
suspiciously stare
piercing
confused
frowns
worn by
flummoxed
citizens
unable to
gaze away the
maleficent days

seemingly
beginning in
innocuous
ways

they
build walls
to keep
"the other"
out

firming
conformity
to the ways
within

deep
foundations
of rigid status
quo pillars
sacrosanct

differentiation
verboten

diversity breeds
suspicion

conversations
eavesdropped

big data ears
ever listening
to between
the lines words

small talk
meta data
indexed and
algoed

down beat
utterances
classified
state secrets

certain books
are forbidden

artists condemned
art destroyed

ideas censored
shut down by
corporate
governance
social network
posting rules
and best practice
marketing
metrics

dissent
shouted down
by xenophobic
#ammosexual
group think
yahoos

in blind allegiance
to commands
of Citizen Inc
politicians
enable
a juggernaut
to roll across
the globe
fracking
to bits
anything
obstructing
its path

science is
false

history
suspicious

revisionism erases
biographical memory
we forgot how
we arrived
at this place

The History Channel
flickers cartoons
of multicolored
allegories onto
the dark walls
of our video
addicted minds
offering sweet
relief of a new
commercial fix

pandered opinion
is trafficked
as fact

inculcating
confirmation of a
stasis affirming
echo chamber

real time news
rubber stamps
the prevailing
zeitgeist of
the daily dread
a visceral
confirmation
of the World
Series Hunger
Games

communities
compel
residents
to swear
allegiance
to tribal creeds
that debase
humanity

religious precepts
shutters spirituality
with sanctioned
indoctrination
designed to
undermine an
ability to reason

ethical discernment
is arrested by moral
bifurcation

the marginalized
are criminalized

land of
the free prisons
promoted
as growth
industries
auction off
bill of rights
on low bid
altars of
profitability

a perpetual
state of warfare
marshals frenzied
legions of fear

as casualties
mount the
march of
militarization is
the only known balm
to salve the terror
welling deep within
afflicted hearts

the sun rises
on another day
in Miami Gardens
as the next shift
of police roll
through this
kingdom
of perps

Music Selection;
Dizzy Gillespie
Things to Come

6/5/14
Oakland
jbm


Miami Gardens;
Capitol of Stop and Frisk
http://www.ebony.com/black-listed/news-views/miami-gardens-the-stop-and-frisk-capital-of-the-country-981#axzz33mbFDN6P
mark john junor Nov 2014
fat monkey's with beady little eyes
wander back and forth along the kitchens edges
licking their lips and hungrily kneading their hands
while i tend the pots and kettle
wearing my best low rent apparel
and listening to only the finest of garage grunge
its miami gardens in springtime
and all the pretty people are strutting the boardwalk
looking for backwater bargains at cheap motels

she is here with me in her barley there bikini
fashionably perfect in all the politically correct ways
its perpetual summer in miami gardens
all the sour hearts on the phone making travel arrangements
the snowbunnys are out in force this year
can't step one foot to a western wind with treading on some ugly mug
but they are oh so friendly
don't you want to cuddle up with some furry little monster
its wintertime in miami gardens

she strips down to her birthday suit
and the monkeys start getting itchy in
their mohair leisure suits  
its hard to get comfortable in your own skin
in the land of picture perfect bodies on the sand
so lets all sit down to eat
share a meal and a mile of road
maybe we can find enough in common to keep out the cold
thinking about miami gardens in spring
David Nelson Apr 2010
First Kiss (Act II - Miami Vice) A Rock Opera

Rachel's plane set down at 2:45 at the Miami Dade Airport.
She was anxious to get off of the plane after a 6 hour flight,
and of course the concourse was jammed full of smiling faces,
weeping faces, noisy children, old people, fat people, tall people,
Cubans, Europeans, Asians, hustling and bustling about.
Rachel and Daniel had of course exchanged photos so they both
knew exactly who they were looking for. Rachel of course was a
bit overdressed having left the UK in 40 degree rainy weather,
only to arrive in balmy Miami where is was 82. After finally
being able to stand and gather up her carry on bags, she
anxiously started down the aisle to exit the aircraft, up the
exit ramp and out into the gate receiving area. After a few
panicky moments, she finally spotted Daniel, and when their
eyes finally met, she felt a new bounce in her step and an
excitement building in her body, as both their faces were covered
with huge smiles. They finally reached each other and embraced,
a long, long embrace. They finally stepped apart from each other
and just stared at each other in disbelief. “is this really happening”,
Daniel asked Rachel. “yes, finally” Rachel said half laughing, and then
they kissed. For the first time their lips met and they both meleted
into each others arms, forgetting for the moment that they were in
a public arena, though most of the people were busy with their own
lives and paid little attention to them except for a few smiling glances.
That first kiss was all and more of what each had expected. The fire
of love was burning inside each of them at that moment, just waiting
for an excuse to burst into flames.
  
They scurried down the wide concourse aisle and headed toward
the escalator down to the baggage pick up area. Walking hand in hand,
looking at each other with still those big grins on their faces. They
finally were able to secure Rachel's luggage and headed out the door
to the parking garage where Daniel's car was parked on the 3rd level.

As they started to cross the busy 4 lane road to get to the garage,
Daniel suddenly looked up and saw a vehicle traveling at a much too
high rate of speed for this congested area. He grabbed Rachel's arm
and pulled her back as the car went speeding by. A couple of shots rang
out from the passing vehicle and barely missed them bouncing off the wall
behind them. They both looked at each other totally startled.

The night was ringing, with violent sounds,
the echoes of turbulent dreams were flying,
being chased by villians, like foxes and hounds,
through the streets, hear the voices crying

seems he had been, a witness of crime,
he was offering his service to the city,
the cartel found out, he was taking the time,
his interventions would allow for no pity

duck your heads, run for the cover,
these beasts of violence, will sure take your life
hide with the Feds, save your lover,
be wary of traitors, they cut like a knife
      
the wailing of sirens, tear through the night,
warnings of immanent danger for you,
seek out the dark, stay out of the light,
you and your lover with your love so true

duck your heads, run for the cover,
these beasts of violence, will sure take your life
hide with the Feds, save your lover,
be wary of traitors, they cut like a knife

Still thinking of that First Kiss ….

Gomer LePoet
tangshunzi Aug 2014
Se c'è una cosa che dovete sapere su di me .è che io sono ossessionato con la caramella .Zuccherino.fruttato .cioccolatoso caramelle.il termine " golosi " e mi vanno di pari passo .Quindi questo capolavoro candy- ispirato di un matrimonio catturato da Ozzy Garcia Fotografia ?Beh.mi ha colpito con il suo bouquet caramelle ( SI ) .fiori rosa -riempita da Ocean Fiori e un infinito visualizzazione dolci.Clicca qui per tutti i dettagli squisiti .E ' al di là abbastanza .

Condividi questa splendida galleria ColorsSeasonsSpringSettingsOutdoorStylesTraditional Eleganza

Da Sposa.Yoav e ** iniziato .scegliendo un luogo che potesse ospitare il nostro matrimonio all'aperto .l'aria calda Miami .una tregua benvenuto da inverni ventoso di Chicago e



Amsterdam e un minimo cambiamento climatico per i nostri 30 membri della vestiti da sposa famiglia che hanno fatto il viaggio dalla lontanaIsraele.La nostra visione per la sera era comfort casual con un lato di zucchero e un paio di sorprese lungo la strada.Jessica Masi di JCG eventi assicurato che questa visione è venuto a vita e Ozzy Garcia .di Ozzy Garcia Fotografia .artisticamente catturato questa visione e immortalato esso .
Avevamo fratello Yoavs officiare una parte della cerimonia .perché abbiamo ritenuto che quando si trattava di integrare i dati personali .chi poteva raccontare la nostra storia meglio di qualcuno che è stato lì fin dall'inizio ?Abbiamo voluto questo per impostare il precedente e il tono per il matrimonio a tutti i presenti .testimoniando il primo giorno della nostra vita in coppia .sono stati tutti .personaggi integrali amare nella nostra storia .

amore è dolce .il mio amore per la caramella è ancora più dolce .e ** sempre saputo che volevo il mio bouquet di essere fatto di caramelle .Alcune persone si asciugano i loro mazzi di fiori .alcune persone li salvano .avevo intenzione di mangiare la mia.Grazie alla Donut Divas .** avuto un ottimo spuntino a tarda notte sulla mia prima notte di nozze !Alcuni dei miei dolci preferiti di zucchero .marshmallow e M \u0026 Ms .sono stati abilmente collocato in un cono di cialda gigante.Il vantaggio di avere un matrimonio in giro per le vacanze di Pasqua è che anche l'erba nel bouquet era commestibile .

Oltre alla mia dipendenza da zucchero .credo davvero che ci sono pochi prodotti alimentari in questo mondo che può farmi felice come una torta di compleanno Publix negozio di alimentari .Al fine di condividere il mio amore per questa confezione con gli altri.dolci display ci ha fatto diversi stand torta di legno colorati .a cui Ocean Fiori aggiunto qualche scintilla .e abbiamo avuto diversi gusti di 8 pollici torte Publix poste sulle tavole di accoglienza .Il piano era quello di rimuovere le torte dopo cena e li hanno tagliati per dessert .ma i nostri ospiti seduti a questi tavoli è diventato così possessivo nei dolci sul loro tavolo che non avrebbe permesso a nessuno di toccarli .I nostri ospiti scavate con le loro forchette .senza nemmeno togliere dalla torta stare !

Oltre a tutti gli elementi fugaci di zucchero che è andato in nostro giorno speciale - le carte escort .il bouquet .i pop anello caramelle .lecca-lecca ragazza di fiore.il candy bar .le torte Publix - Penso che uno dei nostri ricordi preferiti dail giorno è venuto da Erin Una Chainani .** letto di Erin online circa due anni fa dopo googling Miami ritrattista .** chiamato Erin e le ** chiesto se lei sarebbe così incline a frequentare il nostro matrimonio e dipingere una scena.Non solo era pronto.ma ha dipinto due scene di boot!Ha catturato uno della cerimonia e uno del nostro primo ballo in coppia .

Quando il mio nuovo marito ed io stavamo confrontando le note dopo il matrimonio .entrambi abbiamo notato abiti da sposa corti che molte persone ci hanno offerto questo consiglio .amare ogni secondo di questa giornata perché va così veloce .E mentre il giorno ha fatto andare in fretta .non abbiamo mai avuto l'impressione che abbiamo perso tutte le occasioni per tutto dentro E grazie a Erin e Ozzy .abbiamo ricordi che ci ricordano del giorno del nostro matrimonio per sempre .Fotografia

: Ozzy Garcia Fotografia | Floral Design : Mare Flowers | Abito da vestiti da sposa sposa: Pronovias | Wedding Cake: Temptations eleganti | Scarpe : Mojo Moxy | capelli: Tanya Maquez | Abbigliamento dello sposo : Completo di supporto | Cake Stands : Sweet Visualizza | Cake Topper: Questo è il mio Topper | Torte (piccolo ) : Publix Bakery | Candy Profumo: Donut Divas | Cigar Roller : Acope Cigars | Dress Sash : Blue Bird Studio | Orecchini : Matrimoni 826 | Pianificazione + Design : GCP Eventi LLC | Flower Girl Dresses :pretty Flower Girl | Scarpe Flower Girl : Toms | Trucco : Rachel Blair Shapiro | Ritratto Artista : Erin Una Chainani | Wedding Venue : The Palms hotel \u0026
http://www.belloabito.com/abiti-da-sposa-c-1
http://www.belloabito.com/abiti-da-sposa-corti-c-49
http://188.138.88.219/imagesld/td//t35/productthumb/2/2314635353535_397744.jpg
Miami matrimonio al Palms di Ozzy Garcia Fotografia_abiti da sposa 2014
Nat Lipstadt Sep 2013
December 25 - 28, 2010


Stuck in Miami, Florida, because of bad weather in NYC.
Composed after reading the poetry of Campbell McGrath, who lives in Miami.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
­
electric pinpricks of
unfamiliar red and green lights,
bedroom traffic guidance
courtesy of a stranger's
tv and cable box,
an emblematic totem tonight,
of my physical dislocation,
reminders that I'm enslaved
by weather machinations.

I lay, resting uneasy,
in a strange bed,
one night too many,
snow storming in my head
snow storming up north aplenty,
a blizzard of ruminations are
my white coverlet,
while stuck in Miami.

faraway drifts have
force fed and freed
an imprisoned restlessness,
a multipurposed, slashing.

Miami midnight incision has
let out the bad humors,
let in an unfamiliar odor -
lechón asado,
which texts my Pharisee nostrils
in Cubano,
words muy ironico,
a single waking thought,
"who ya kidding?"

Everglades rain
imported from California,
recycles on rooftops,
thrumming a heart beating,
syncopated, watery refrain,
a regifted heavenly present.

the sound waves mark
as a barely undulating wave,
inside this super soaked brain,
that transforms wine into water
and scan lines into these letters,
"who ya kidding?"

all this exponential signage
of this NYC boy grousing, are his
defrocked muses annoying,
with a serenading blizzard
of one trick pony repetitions,
coronets trumpet his unmasking,
this essay, a revelation,
a product of their
harmonious discordancy.

a single note crowns his head
as he weeps whole food
organic, non-recyclable tears,
products of his new inquistional,
a self-inflicted interogatorial,
"who ya kidding?"

compiler of an
occasional talented catch phrase,
strung'em together like
cheap pearls,
pretensions of literary acumen
once populated his Id,
articles of spilled word *****,
but Florida rain has cleansed
his Northern haughty pretensions,
with an injection of truth serum,
a pharmaceutical wonder of
a local poison labeled,
"who ya kidding?"

A day laborer, nothing more,
rise up at five, brown bagged,
a client of Mammon's *****,
soul sagged, life hagged,
a sum of cultural cliches,
a cell phoned baby boomer,
a would be millennial,
constructed of paper mache,
who on occasion,
has been known to say,
"Let's play poetry today."

the poseur chokes
on this new poison,
delivered by unhappy stance
by the arrows of his
current misfortune
for he now suffers from
the deadly disease of
"compare and contrast."

a slim book of poems
of Campbell McGrath's
(his phraseology,
a veritable theology)
shoos the blues traveler,
over to a funhouse
where an honest magic mirror
cuts him down to size.

his poetic aspirations,
a residue of self-infatuation,
are summarily dismissed by
the truly gritty, quick justice
of a master poet's
"who ya kidding?"

so watch how a would-be
poet disappears,
in a barrage of bullets marked,
nevermore,
his dignity, more than hobbled,
his cheek, gone, gobbled,
his juice, a currency unaccepted,
his holiday present,
a ceasefire of conjugation,
a cornucopia of declinations

dare I ever write again?
who indeed, am I kidding,
other than myself?

I am an addict, not a poet.
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.
What can I read her
What can I read her
on a Sunday Morning

What can I do that will
somehow reach her
on a Sunday Morning

I’ll read her the news of
The Indian Wars

Full of criss-cavalry, blood
& gore

Stories to tame & charm
& more

On a Sunday Morning
~~~

Some wild fires
Searchout
a dry quiet kiss on leaving
~~~

Like our ancestors
The Indians
We share a fear of ***
excessive lamentation for the dead
& an abiding interest in dreams & visions
DET Jan 2016
By:D.E.T

No money, no family
Sixteen
Living in the middle of Miami
No money, no family
Living in misery

I remember when it all used to be simple
But with no cash it only turn's into triple

Back from memory
I remember there was no misery
When I had my family

Yeah, but I got this dream
That I have to follow
So, I gotta swallow
My tears that are about to drop

Yeah, had to wake up and leave New York
For my business work

No money, no family
Going to the middle of Miami
People from Miami are asking me
Why do I wanna work if I'm only sixteen
But I ain't gonna repeat this
Got alot business

Sixteen, Sixteen
Middle of Miami
Gotta take off the bus

Looking at windows alot of traffic
On the road
On the row
But  just goanna keep on
Yeah, there ain't turn back down
No, I won't frown

No money, no family
Sixteen
Middle of Miami
Hidin' my sense of expression
Cuz I'm falling into depression

But as I sow how this thing life works
It only makes me go harder
And get stronger

Funny how the people who kicked me
Now stick to me
Funny how they act like they help me get to the to the top
When all they did is tired drop
Me down into the ground

I remember when I was struggling
Y'all smirk
As y'all threw off more work
But that only made me get harder
Get tougher
Cuz my struggle
Is the only thing I am trusting

Now it's money, and family
Cuz as I work
I kept that smirk
Cuz as I trusted my struggle's
It only made me hit the score
To go harder
Life maybe hard but you just gotta go tougher and go stronger and go harder on the people who is trying to bring you down.
Copyright © 2016 D.E.T All Rights Reserved
Lynn MacKinnon Sep 2014
Fall in Miami is nearly here
It's my favorite season of the year
Cooler the weather soon will be
Crisp air, fresh smells, energetic cats we'll see.

Time to plant my seeds to grow
Vegetables, herbs, all organic we sow
Trees still green, light outside after dinner
Walks, badminton,  biking all a winner.

Halloween fun coming soon,
The stores with holiday supplies since June
Door bells ring, children call “trick-or-treat”
Scary costumes and mounds of candy to eat.

Buy a pumpkin and carve evil, smile fake
The seeds toasted, fruit in an aromatic cake
Shriveled pumpkin in my compost bin
Organic matter to start all over again.
Written October, 2009
YOU SEE I FEEL LIKE I AM BEING TREATED LIKE AN ANIMAL, AND I REMEMBER BACK IN THE 1930s, WHEN I WAS

BARNEY THE DOG, YA SEE I JUMPED AROUND ALL OVER THE PLACE, AND ROLLING AROUND ALL OVER THE

LAWN, IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT, YA SEE I AM GETTING VISIONS, OF ME AS BARNEY THE DOG, AND

I REMEMBER CHARLIE CHAPLIN PATTED ME ON THE HEAD, AND I BIT HIM SOMETHING FIERCE

AND CHARLIE CHAPLIN WASN’T IMPRESSED ONE LITTLE BIT, SO FROM THAT MOMENT, KRIS KRINGLE

DECIDED TO HAASLE CRONUS’S SPIRIT WHICH IS ME, AND I REMEMBERED JUMPING ALL

OVER EVERYONE, BUT I MAULED LITTLE KIDS AND CATS AND OTHER DOGS, AND I AM HAVING TROUBLE BATTLING

THIS VOICE TONIGHT, AS BUDDHA IS LIFTING BARNEY THE DOG UP, AND THEN DROPPING, YA SEE

MY OWNERS BACK THEN, REALLY HATED MY VIOLENT OUTBURSTS, AND I BARKED VERY FIERCELY BACK

AND I MADE MY OWNER REALLY SCARED OF ME.

I REALLY LOVED RUNNING ON THE BEACH IN MIAMI, YEAH IN THE 30s, MIAMI BEACH WAS BUSIER THAN

TODAY, I RAN DOWN AND I MAULED A KID, ON THIS BEACH AND MY OWNER GOT INTO  TROUBLE

CAUSE, DESPITE THE KID NOT DYING, HE HAD FRACTURES IN HIS HANDS, AND I VISION

OF ME PLAYING OUT ON THE FRONT DOOR, BUT I AM TRYING TO IGNORE THAT VOICE

ONLY BECAUSE, I AM NOT BARNEY THE DOG NO MORE, I REMEMBER GOING TO THE

LITTLE LEAGUE BASEBALL, AND I TRAPPED 3 KIDS IN THE BASEBALL SHED, 2 KIDS GOT OUT

BUT 1 KID WAS MAULED BY ME, BARNEY THE DOG, I FIRST STARTED GROWLING AT THE KID

THEN I KILLED HIM, WHICH MADE ME VERY HUNGRY FOR MORE, BUT AFTER MY OWNER HEARD

DESPITE OF WHAT HE SAID, WANTED TO KEEP ME UNDER LOCK AND KEY, HOPING IT WILL

REFORM THE SAVAGE BEAST IN MYSELF, I REALLY DON’T APPRECIATE BEING TREATED LIKE AN

ANIMAL, I AM A HUMAN BEING, NOW, BUT BRIAN ALLAN, WAS PUT ON THIS EARTH TO EXPLAIN

ABOUT HIS PREVIOUS LIVES, AND TAKE ONE FOR THE TEAM, TO HELP THE POOR PEOPLE

I DON’T APPRECIATE BEING TREATED LIKE MY CAT EITHER, CAUSE I WAS RUBUX THE CAT

AND THAT CAT NEVER SLEPT, AFTER I WAS GREAME THORNE AND PATRICK DUNBAR BOTH

KIDNAPPED AND KILLED AT THE AGE OF 8, THEN I WAS RUBUX THE CAT, BUT I WAS A REALLY LOUD

NON FAMILY LOVING CAT, CAUSE MY COSMIC ENERGY, WAS HELPING CRONUS, DESTROY THE

SPIRIT OF STEVEN BRADLEY AS WELL AS THAT CRAZY WITCH DOCTOR, RUBUX WAS ALSO

A VERY HUNGRY CAT, HE ATE 5 TINS A NIGHT, AND THE OWNERS, WERE POOR AND STRUGGLING,

THEY CAN BARELY LOOK AFTER THEMSELVES LET ALONE A CAT, AND THEN RUBUX WAS RUN OVER BY A GROUP

OF KIDS SAYING, RUN HIM OVER, RUN HIM OVER, RUN HIM OVER, PRETTY MUCH WHERE I GOT THAT

STUPID VOICE, OF KIDS SAYING RUN HIM OVER, I DON’T WANT TO BE AN ANIMAL, I AM A HUMAN BEING

I COULD BE DOG WITH A BLOG, BUT I THINK THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH WHAT I DO ON

AAA YOUTUBE TV OR AARON CLAYTON, PLEASE STOP TREATING ME LIKE AN ANIMAL, I KNOW

BARNEY THE DOG WAS BAD, BUT KIDS MADE RUBUX PAY FOR WHAT BARNEY DID, I DON’T WANT TO BE A COOL KID

TO THE BED COVERS YOUNG DUDES, TONIGHT I FEEL LIKE A N ANIMAL, SO I WROTE IT OUT OF ME

CAUSE I AM A PERSON A VERY NICE PERSON

I WANT TO BE HAPPY EVERY DAY

BARNEY DOESN’T REALISE HE RUINED CRONUS’S GOOD NAME

BUT HE WAS A DOG, OH YEAH HE PUT OTHER GERMAN SHEPHERDS TO SHAME

I AM NO ANIMAL, BARNEY AND RUBUX, WERE MY LAST CRACKS, THE KIDS KILLED RUBUX, BRIAN

ALLAN WAS BATTLING WITH DAD SAYING LEAVE MY SON ALONE, BRIAN IS A COOL KID

LIKE ALL KIDS, I THOUGHT, I HATE BEING A COOL KID TO DAD, BUT I LIKE DOING THINGS THOUGH

MY COOL KID, IS WATCHING FOOTY, MY BROTHERS WAS PLAYING COWBOYS AND INDIANS

OK THAT IS THIS LIFE, BUT FOR RUBUX AND BARNEY, THEY HAD STUPID OWNERS

RUBUX’S OWNERS WERE SO DEVASTATED, WHEN RUBUX DIED, THEY TOOK THE KIDS TO COURT

GOT $ 1-000-000 IN COLD HARD CASH

AND BOUGHT A HOUSE IN MIAMI AND WENT TO WOODSTOCK IN 1969

AND BRIAN KNEW THIS, CAUSE I USED MY SPIRIT OF RUBUX THROUGH CRONUS TO WATCH THAT

THEY ENJOY THEMSELVES, IN THEIR NEW HOME IN MIAMI
Dwight Drummond Sep 2013
Beautiful Women fill The City of Miami Beach Club Lights of Flashing stars, All those that enter the Dark Night. Fashionable Celebrities Consume The Area of South Beach Provocative Imagery Leaving nothing to the Imagination. There is no Room but to Entertain The Entertainment that shows The Crowd a Good Time. All Those that Oppose will be Left Behind in The Miami Lights.
Elena Ramos Apr 2015
Elena Ramos


Aquí todo en mi mente da vueltas, nada es estable, no hay un objeto al cual pueda ver directo y guiarme para no caer. Para mí no sirve el simple hecho de tenerlo todo para ser feliz, ni el dinero, ni una familia reconocida en todo Miami y el resto del país. Me llamo Gimena Rodríguez, mis papas son de Honduras pero emigraron a los Estados Unidos cuando mi hermano mayor Roberto tenía apenas diez años en ese entonces yo tenía ocho horribles y apestosos años, era muy fea, mi mama siempre me ponía dos ganchitos en la frente para quitarme el pelo de la cara; bote todas las fotos que dejaban evidencia de ese abuso hacia el estilo y la dignidad de una niña pequeña.  

He buscado en la internet el significado de mi nombre, porque ni yo sé que soy. Hay unos sitios bien raros que dicen que soy de las que necesita ser apoyada por los demás, algo que no es cierto, pero he topado con un sitio que dice que soy de pensamiento firme, ágil y con capacidad analítica. Y por cierto mi número de la suerte dice ser el número cuatro, puede tener algo de sentido ya que el 4 de noviembre es mi cumpleaños, o que casualmente mis papas estén de aniversario el mismo día. Suelo ser de esas chicas que todo el mundo conoce o dice saber conocerme, por el simple hecho de tener una familia la cual, toda América conoce. Mi papa heredo el negocio de mi abuelo, (por lo general el abuelo o como yo lo llamaba Yeyo, era el único que me entendía hasta llegue a prometerle que seguiría los pasos de la familia y seguir el negocio) una empresa que distribuye muebles, ya sean sofás como camas y cosas así. La compañía se llama DecoArte, había empezado en 1934 con mi bisabuelo Arturo, que luego paso a ser mi mi Yeyo y ahora de mi padre (solo espero que Roberto pelee por su lugar en la compañía y decida quedarse todo para él, así no tendría que seguir en este negocio, porque realmente no me gusta). He decidido que quiero ir a Los Angeles y estudiar Fashion Management & Marketing, en la Universidad de Argosy. He aplicado a varias universidades y aun espero respuesta, seria decepcionante no ser aceptada en ninguna y entonces tendría que trabajar en DecoArte toda mi vida. Todos los días son decepcionantes, siempre es lo mismo, mi casa parece un lugar solitario. Roberto tiene su propio apartamento, todos los días sube fotos a su cuenta de Instagram haciendo fiestas, las cuales son mencionadas como las mejores. Fraternidades de muchas universidades terminan ahí, los vagabundos igual, y así todo Miami. Sería bueno si por lo menos me invitara a una de sus “reuniones”, como el las suele llamar cuando estamos frente a nuestros padres. No me veo pequeña, tengo diez y siete años y el próximo año me graduare de Miami Beach High School. Muchos me preguntan si realmente tengo la edad que les digo tener, nadie me cree, muchos dicen que me veo mucho mayor, algo que para mí no está mal. En mi cuenta de twitter me he fijado que Roberto dará una fiesta, tal vez pueda decir que voy a ver una película y me voy un rato a su casa, solo espero que mi propio hermano no me eche de la casa. En mi tiempo libre, después de clases, suelo agarra mi computadora portátil y abrir Word, y escribir todo el día. Hace poco subí gratis un libro de poemas de dicados a la gente que no sabe qué hacer con su vida. He tenido buenas respuestas, inclusive en mi blog recibo visitas y buenos comentarios a montones. Existen dos mundos parami, la realidad y el mundo que creo con los libros y la escritura. Cada libro que leo me envuelve en un sentimiento que hace que imagine estar en el libro. Al escribir siento que mis ideas fluyen y que soy yo honestamente, sin censura, sin miedo a expresarme. En este momento estoy escribiendo una historia ficticia de esta joven que desea encontrar el amor, ya que casi lo encontraba pero el murió. Por su falta de confianza no es capaz de hablar con ningún muchacho. Esta es la introducción del libro:
               Para amar hay un tiempo límite, o por lo menos para mí sí. Si tienes una enfermedad terminal, es muy probable que ese amor nunca llegue. Desearía tener por lo menos un romance que dure poco o hasta cuando yo siga viva. Mi vida se complica cada vez más, el único hombre que veo seguido es mi médico el doctor Collins, está casado y tiene una hermosa hija. En el hospital veo morir a diario personas de las cuales me hice amiga. Aun no olvido su rostro, su pálida cara, que me reía aun a pesar de tener peores condiciones de vida que yo. Se llamaba Mark, tenía doce años cuando lo conocí, y diez y siete cuando lo vi por última vez. Cada año lo volvía diferente, siempre había un problema más o algo en su cuerpo había cambiado por  completo. Lo conocí cuando yo tenía once años, llegue a emergencias esa noche, mi mente giraba, era más verde como la pared que trigueña. Gracias a dios detectaron mi cáncer con tiempo. Pero esa noche ahí estaba el, sentado en una camilla, me pareció muy guapo desde el primer instante en que nuestros ojos se cruzaron. Mientras mi mama hablaba con la enfermera afuera, yo estuve acostada, mirándolo y luego mirando el techo. No sabía que sucedía conmigo, solo sabía que  me sentía a morir. No llore porque él estaba ahí, a dos camillas de la mía. Sabía que me observaba aunque lo disimulaba muy bien. Entraron mi mama y varias enfermeras y un doctor,  después de un rato sacaron mi camilla y me llevaban a otro lugar. Deje a ese muchacho solo en ese espantoso cuarto, solo, y seguramente con dolor en alguna parte. Desperté el día siguiente en un cuarto, había dos camas más  pero al parecer solo yo ocupaba y llenaba aquella gran habitación. Me di cuenta que mi mama y mi papa estaban dormidos, me sorprendió ver a papa faltar al trabajo. No estoy muy segura, pero anoche tuve uno de los mejores sueños más reales que he tenido en mi vida. Soñé con el muchacho de la sala de emergencia. Vi su hermoso pelo, dorado que caía sobre sus orejas, sus perfectos ojos, que no se distinguían si eran grises o verdes. Tenía una camiseta roja, parecía el tipo de adolescente que se intoxica con algo y termina aquí. Definitivamente desearía poder volverlo a ver por lo menos un instante, para poder recordar mejor esa mirada y su hermosa sonrisa.  No hice ruido y me levante buscando un baño, estaba bien, solo algo cansada, y molesta por esa horrenda bata que llevaba puesta, ya que no tenía nada abajo. Hice ruido al levantarme ya que presione uno de los botones que levanta la camilla. Mi padre Augusto, se levantó en un abrir y cerrar de ojos del sofá donde dormía para ir en mi auxilio. –Papa estoy bien-,-No te creo, a dónde vas?-,-solo busco un baño, necesito ir ahorita-. La cara de papa estaba muy diferente, hoy no tenía esa mirada de las mañanas que me decían que todo estaba bien, que la economía estaba por las nubes, o que sasha mi perrita no le causaba alergia cuando todos sabíamos que sí. Me detuve a observarlo, sabía que algo le ocurría,  tal vez fue despedido, o tuvo una seria pelea con mi madre, algo que creo lógico, ya que Paty se pone muy insolente cuando tiene discusiones con papa. –qué ocurre?- le pregunte, tocándole la cara muy delicadamente, tratando de leer su mente o entenderlo-cariño, hay cosas de las cuales tenemos que hablar- al decir esto mi padre, supe que no era nada bueno, porque en ese mismo instante se puso a llorar, por un motivo yo hice lo mismo con él. Mi madre se despertó por el ruido.-Mary, el cáncer no te va a matar, te juro que te van a curar, te lo prometo hija pero por favor no llores-. Mi padre la observo fijamente a los ojos. Fue un golpe muy duro el que recibí, darme cuenta que tenía cáncer y de esta manera. Simplemente, busque la puerta y Salí corriendo, lo más rápido posible, segundos después me di la vuelta y vi que ya no sabía en qué parte del hospital me encontraba. –Mary!-se escuchaba en el fondo. Era mi mama que locamente me buscaba. Me imagino lo mal que se ha de sentir en este momento, pero no lo puedo creer aun, pero tengo cáncer…logre salir de esa situación, ya no estaba corriendo por los pasillos, estaba en un cuarto. –Hola- me di la vuelta y lo vi a él, creí no volver a ver esos ojos, pero si.-hola-creo que nunca estuve tan nerviosa en mi vida. Busque la forma en que la camilla cubriera mi bata, estaba descalza y muy despeinada, pero aun ocupaba ir a un baño. Al fondo vi una puerta, había un baño,-Perdón, pero me puedes prestar tu baño-, él se rio enseguida-si no hay problema, además no es mío es del hospital-. Fui caminando muy rápido, y me encerré, luego, me lave las manos, me enjuague la boca, lave mi cara, y Salí.-me llamo Mary- extendí mi mano hacia la suya.-un gusto Mary, soy Gabriel-. Nombre perfecto para un ángel, el cual él se parecía mucho. Sentía mi corazón palpitando mucho, en un instante sentía que me desmayaba y era enserio, no era por las mariposas ni nada por el estilo, realmente me sentía mal. Gabriel tomo mi mano, me ayudo a sentarme y enseguida llamo a una enfermera. Al rato todos estaban en la habitación, incluso mis papas. –Mary!!—mama estoy bien-.la enfermera me acostó en la camilla de Gabriel, y me tomo la presión, al segundo llego otra enfermera a sacarme sangre. Papa me tomo de la cintura, y me guiaban para ir a mi habitación. Estoy en este momento entrando en un túnel donde sentía que nunca llegaría a casa, pensaba en todas las cosas que hice antes por diversión, pero ahora vivo una pesadilla, que espero que sea simplemente eso, y despertar termine con ella. No pude decirle adiós a Gabriel, pero ya sabia que su numero era treinta y seis, y la mia era la sesenta y dos. Había un brillo que trataba de iluminar mi vida, mi cerebro, había tanta oscuridad, tanta tristeza oculta, cuando la gente que yo amo se de cuente de lo que tengo y en lo que me convertiré tendre miedo de su miedo. He visto tantas películas de esas en las que alguien tiene cáncer o una enfermedad terminal, tengo miedo de no querer luchar por mi vida, miedo a no querer salir de esa comodidad en mi mente y querer rendirme. Tengo solo pocos momentos en mi vida, que valen la pena ser contados. Qué tal si no lleguen mas momentos asi y muera sin haber vivido mi vida. He viajado mucho para que termine asi. Mi mente viaja por lugares muy profundos de mi alma, siento eterna la llegada  a mi habitación. Solo escucho bulla de afuera, tanta que no se en cual enfocarme. Mis papas respetan mi silencio, saben que quiero aclarar mejor las cosas pero que tal si no quiero saberlo y seguir así, viajando por la vida solo por viajar sin rumbo, porque la verdad asi me siento. –mary quieres desayunar, el doctor dice que no tienes dieta-. –Si mam, -dije para romper el silencio de aquella blanca habitación. Tengo una terraza, con hermosas flores, no tengo nada que perder ni ganar ahora, solo disfrutar de su belleza y el canto de los pájaros, es hermosa; la única que no me altera, la única que no se siente como bulla. –pero, creo que todos necesitamos una ducha—si, papa, pero no tengo ropa-.Mama ira a la casa y yo a comprar el desayuno, y tu te quedaras aqui con la enfermera mientra te terminan de revisar-. No  soportaba la idea de que tuvieran que sacarme sangre o que alguien estuviera tan cerca de mi, como esta enfermera. Mis papas salieron de la habitacion, y tuve el descaro de preguntarle en el oído a una de las enfermeras, de quien era Gabriel.-te gusta verdad?-,-no!, simplemente tengo curiosidad-.y ahí empezó la historia mas fasinante e interesante que había escuchacho antes.- Se llama Gabriel Cole y tiene doce años, su mama, no sabemos nada de ella. Vino hace seis meses y desde entonces vive aquí, su papa es Señor Cole,no pudo soportar verlo enfermo entonces pago para que viviera aquí, y se fue. Viene a visitarlo una vez a la semana pero tiene dos semanas sin venir.es un buen muchacho, no le vendría mal una amiga, ahora que no tiene a nadie-.no  puedo creer que su familia lo haya abandonado. No me imagino vivir sin mi mama o sin mi papa, seria horrible.-Bueno he terminado contigo, el doctor Collins vendrá en un rato, descansa-. Salieron por la puerta dejándome sola.
I'm a stepping stone that was stepped a few hundred too many times
You have to forgot about implementing Jewels on me
I want to be a pedestal
Something that's seen as higher
Because i'm more than your lyre of heavy weight objects
We're all worth more than what we think
But every now and then i don't think
And that's my my biggest vice
If Miami was even paying attention.
M Padin Oct 2013
Miami melts in its own heat.
It is, as Robert Frost writes,
"Riding on its own melting."

The grubby politicians
no one votes for
package the
melted, gelatinous
reality-space in
salami tubes.
(America, this is where your
“mystery meat” originates.)

And like Frost’s poetry,
this palm tree city
is a modern achievement,
gross in the undertaking.

It is a lead coffin, kept afloat
on the Atlantic Coast by
feat of the imagination alone.
The Frost allusion is to the author's essay, "The Figure a Poem Makes." Excised stanza:

This postcard ghetto is two-dimensional and
may be mailed anywhere.
It has no reality, for
only tourists seem to live here.
I was sitting playing slots
It was two a.m. and vacant
When a man came up and asked
Is this seat beside you taken?
I turned and told him no i'ts free
I looked deep and saw despair
He dropped his rumpled duffle bag
And plopped himself into the chair

He let his body acclimate
More to the warmth, than to the seat
I turned and played my game some  more
This man was basking in the heat
I watched him pull the tickets
From his pocket one by one
He laid them out before him
Until he'd counted twenty one
He fed them to the slot machine
Some kicked back, he got real tense
When he was finished I looked over
He had put in just ninety cents

The tickets were the remnants
of what others may have lost
But to him, they were a rental
To keep him not from getting tossed
He watched me for a while
Not hitting one button on his side
I could not help but look over
No matter how I tried

His hair was grey and matted
His fingers showed the stains
Of many years of nicotine
His eyes just showed the pain
He lit a smoke, second hand I'd say
He'd pulled a bag from in his coat
It was full of butts, all well worn down
Already ****** down someone's throat
He gave a cough and coughed a bit
Like he was getting set to speak
Then this man, slid over some
And in a voice, weary and weak
He said 'you got to line them up
I'll give you some advice
I knew that slots were random
But, this man....he had a price

He stared close at my empty glass
I'd just finished a cold beer
He coughed again and then he said
Son, it's surely dry in here
I waved a drink girl over
And I signalled to her "two"
I mean, it was cold outside
And I couldn't let him go  with out a brew
He kept eyeing up my ashtray
Where I'd left half a cigar
I knew that he would have it
in his grasp, before I went too far
I watched as he kept staring
Looking round, checking his back
He was fidgeting, and shaking
Waiting for the drink girl to come back
He had no bills to tip her
So as he saw her coming near
He got up to use the restroom
He said son....please watch my beer
I tipped her for the two of them
He was watching from the door
I guess when you've got nothing
You've got to learn just how to get more
I lit a second cigar up
clipped the end and took a puff
He sat back and breathed the smoke right down
Until his lungs had had enough
I asked him if he'd like one
His eyes lit up at this
He said thank you and was grateful
He said sir, I'd be remiss
But, can you cut it with your cutter
It's been so long since I've had one
I used to smoke them in Miami
When I used to winter in the sun
Lately, though, I've had hard times
I'm not half the man I was
I can't tell you what I used to have
I can't total up the loss
I lit the smoke, he ****** it in
Almost passed out from the taste
He said, I see these on the street some days
All crushed, son....what a waste
I used to winter in Miami
Watching jai lai, betting big
spending cash like it grew on trees
His eyes, they danced a jig

You know, now, when I think on back
I'm more thankful now than then
But, son, if I had the choice
I'd do it all again
Now, I come on in here
I pick my row seat in the fifth row, son
The fourth one in by the third glass door
The second seat, just over one
I listened to his seating plan
I looked around and tried to see
He said, you're looking at what seat I'm in
Looking for door number three
I'm kidding with you, there's no seat
I just move around to where it's warm
to where I might find some conversation
A place, some shelter from the storm
I knew he was a grafter
And in the end would be found out
He was looking for the easy way
Of this there was no doubt
whether he'd ever seen Miami
didn't matter all the same
But, in truth how many drifters
Know that jai lai is a sport and not a game
I finished up and told him
Keep warm and find a bed
He told me thanks, and shook my hand
And ran his hand over his head
I got up and I left him
Leaving five bucks on my machine
A fresh cigar in my ashtray
all where it could be seen
I walked away in silence
Heard the ticket get spit out
I then turned to see him leaving
Looking around for his next route
Whether he'd ever seen Miami
had cash, or food to eat
didn't matter in the long run
As he searched out another seat
Terry Jordan Mar 2017
Don’t play out in your yard in Miami
I heard it on the evening news
The newsman’s lips slowly moving
Repeating words he’d never choose

An 8 year old girl caught in the crossfire
A shooter so blinded with rage
That he never noticed she was singing
Standing up on her homemade stage

The reporter keeps giving the details
How the shooter had aimed for another
Over getting revenge for a break-up
How he got the gun from his big brother

He found it under the seat in his car
Children find what adults hide all the time
That it’s not unusual to hear when
A toddler shoots his mother in the spine

One mother grieves while another’s relieved
Either outcome leaves one dead kid
Playing out in her yard in Miami
The last thing that she ever did
All too true and too commonplace that we become numb to these tragedies.
What has the world become,
when zombies have jumped out of their TV screens.
Faces of men in the streets of Miami,
have been gnawed off by human teeth.

Bath salts empower the mind.

And now "zombie" is dead;
shooters introduced him to his grave.
Do they have that right?

Sweet world, there are sinister things living within your confines.
Aly Raines Apr 2013
He is scraggled,
bathed only by the suns light during the hours of his slumber on Miami dewed, morn soil.
He sleeps off the night before, though he is not reminicent of it in his dreams,
as his slumber is no longer dreamt, but devoured by the nightmare of life,
and nights and days have begun to slur into one another
untill one becomes another,
and vice versa.
The empty bottle in the bag was dumped miles ago
on the side of a road no longer remembered,
and the facade of the beggar was dropped long ago,
as the face of hope was rendered.
The known knowledge of his future demise does not scare him,
as the only friend that brings him peace is the one that will destroy him.
But he is alright,
as the short lived calm of his decent into the burbon torrent
is his way of riding his nightmares,
and as he drinks his way away tonight, honey,
he knows,
this truely is all there is.

a.r.
Lynn MacKinnon Aug 2014
It's summer here in Miami, Florida.  The Jacaranda tree has violet flowers that fall and float on the tops of the moist jade grass.  The Gardenia bush with bent branches is heavy with fragrant white flowers.  Parsley, basil and dill are tall and flowering with bees pollinating them.  

Numerous plump cherry tomatoes, with all their tingling flavor, hide among the leggy bushes. Green and scarlet bell peppers, smooth and crisp, hang on neighboring branches.

Several new baby birds are fledgling from nests while their parents protectively hover nearby.  Two families of scarlet Cardinal birds greedily eat from our outdoor feeders.  A flock of fifty Cherry Head parrots with their crimson shoulders and heads  crack open black sunflower seeds.

Toads at night call to prospective mates sounding like broken air conditioners.  Black wiggly bodies swim in clusters in the canal feeding on algae waiting to grow their legs and hop through the tall grasses.

Global mangoes growing and ripening on trees are large enough to sweeten the palette .

The sun is smiling warming the earth--the animals, plants and people.  Steady rain quenches the thirst of all creatures.  Nature is here for us to enjoy.
Written May, 2011
David Nelson Apr 2010
Miami Vice – The Song – From First Kiss Rock Opera

The night was ringing, with violent sounds,
the echoes of turbulent dreams were flying,
being chased by villians, like foxes and hounds,
through the streets, hear the voices crying

seems he had been, a witness of crime,
he was offering his service to the city,
the cartel found out, he was taking the time,
his interventions would allow for no pity

duck your heads, run for the cover,
these beasts of violence, will sure take your life
hide with the Feds, save your lover,
be wary of traitors, they cut like a knife
      
the wailing of sirens, tear through the night,
warnings of immanent danger for you,
seek out the dark, stay out of the light,
you and your lover with your love so true

duck your heads, run for the cover,
these beasts of violence, will sure take your life
hide with the Feds, save your lover,
be wary of traitors, they cut like a knife

Still thinking of that First Kiss ….

Gomer LePoet
Ken Pepiton Oct 2018
'Put my hand in the hand of the man from Galilee,

that song keeps playing in my memory, and I recalled

Or I thought I did, I imagined he'd walk with me
and talk with me
Along life's merry (or was it narrow?), way

a light touch, his arm around my shoulders,
as boys are wont to do,
I axed 'im,
help me fill the darkness behind my eyes,
which I think may have been blind, at that time,

I have memories like that.
packed away in old memes. That mean something...
Gold-something...
color maybe, Goldfarv? Bloom.
Right, my augmentatious savant
looked it up and I sorted what I recalled

Google The Global Brain, Howard Bloom,
where he named a kind of
category of knowability. Memes, he called them.

And I thought, memes mean something more,
not Dawkins's, nor Bloom's, but these,
heteromemes bubbling out my belly button,
look real close.

Here a seeing being done, words appearing...

fractally featureless by the time a clock could have been imagined,

the point of the story was made,
and there is no end in sight.

Pop. Another apocalypse bubble collapses by mortality. Whaddyaknow?

What remains when a bubble pops at a positron level,
after the charge is touched and
the tension-power-loss collapses the bubble?

You should think, you know atoms work, this way.

Touchy bubbles disappear when their form is disinformed,
the wall of a bubble,
one quanta of power thick,
vanishes
as the charge that formed it flees.
That bubble,
not cloud-based, random super positioning,but
elect
tric-magi-tech, a touch screened
at the quantum accounting point of real-ification,
but, probably,
a bubble,indeed,
powered, one way or another, with a single charge,
Go, that's it.
(I charge thee, son Timothy, go)
That's all an electron does.
It goes, as soon as any sense can be made of it,
outa here, oughta hear it, clear,
ping. No charge, no bubble, but next sure as...
No, ah, when I think about that..

Hell,
somethi' from nuthin musta hapt one time,

but ya'll take no heed, this voice,
m'fallin angel, Tantan, droppin' in ol-fren, tricky hybridbast...

Noah was a tellin' Ham the truth
found in wines that moved themselves aright,
slurry tongued, and laughin' but pisstoff.

The idea of somethin' goin' south in a family,
that started up again when
ever Noah started drinkin' old wine, sayin' sbetter'n...

Old story, God damened 'em, not me, I just
built the box.

Who told you I was naked? Noah queried Shem.

-- aye, ye know, Noah was drunk,
No excuse, but you know.

Things were said, that maybe could be forgotten, after a while,

But those father wounds a man imagines worst
are the one's his son's forgot.
Forgot can't be forgiven it seems, sometimes...

The story being told is complicated. See,
the Bible is a lens,
not a map.

I've looked so long through that lens,
that I began to see the bubble formed around me,
charged powerfully with fear,
'yond my bubble monsters lurked.

But, my bubble bumped another,
purest of happenstance,
the bubbles merged and merged again,
their power building to a wave,
crashing to the shore and no more
was I bubbled in my safe place.

I found this trail up from the beach.

It got me much farther than this, should you ever
visit me.
Did you regret the defeat at Ai,
or were you
Aachen, bold?

No, irrelevant, obtuse allusion to Yahshua,
that's not in the stack,
that card's about as relevant as McLuhan's hair of the dog.

Information unformed begins to boil deep in me.

Somethin', ain't it?  All them three meter dishes shrunk down
to the size of a spoon, a teeny weeny spoon, a coke spoon,
like on Miami Vice, back when.

Satellite TV changed the desert, fer sher, but 4g, brohan,

that was the trick. Elect trick.
Future, on demand, where outhouses are still de rigueur.

Before you know it, country kids,
too poor for any but outlaw dreams,
can audit courses at MIT,
if somebody
shows him, it can be done, prove t' him
it works, faith can make things happen,
but
happening as an event, in the Deep Field,
is sorta hard to nail down to one thing,
until the very last
Planc-sec.  
Astrophysics is part of the metagame, fer sher.
But
there's some stuff that takes some patience,
to learn. Fifty year'r longer.

Everything that's old and still works is only old, not rotten.

Olde time religion, at the oldfo'k dayroom,
where the clock runs the whole show.
It's another game show. Saint Bob Barker takes a bow,
and declares the potential worth of all your eyes behold,
behind the curtain,
lies the prize.

If, if, if you are a luckywinner and
you arise when I call your name
to come on down,
fall on your knees and declare the worth...

pure gamesmanships required here, golf whispers only,
worship, 'smuch more difficult to aim for than praise.
I agree.
Praise, appraisal, worthyness, worthship, prize, what's the diff?
How comes a thing to be worthy,
in your estimation? Tell me no lie.

A feeling? What's it worth?
Depends.
Safe? Priceless! Don't shout. There's money to make.

'Got a busy-ness pre-positioned high above the rest.
A super-positioned superstion. The darkness.
See, safety is a human right.
So we sell walls, impermeable. It's always, lights on
within, then
We'll be rich and powerful wallbuilding,
citi-zen warriors fed and fattened
by those we make
feel safe, from the dark unknowns seeping in.

That's the idea. It's worked for years, at least
since
we saw the Power in Myth and
capitalized Campbell's bliss and Sagan's billions and billions of stars.

Within these walls workers will work for food and a feeling.
And Facebook.
They choose a place and stand, and do what comes to hand.
Heartily
grip what's easiest for you to hold on to,
they are told.

Attendants bring the meds, settling every disruption
of the peace the patient craves in his comfort.
The price ain't right, m'mouthmumbles...

You are absolutely co-rect-allatime, tekayepeel.

There are wishes being made,
on all manner of stars
for happy ever afters.

If wishes were askings, what if
connecting to the source of haps which,
every expert knows, haps are
all happiness can possibly
consist of.
Oh, consist.
That sticky, gluteny idea stuck in my daily bread.
It's related to resist, desist and the command to stand.
Sistere. Shield-wall and all that. Turtles all the way down.

A disruption!
Day room Now! Granpa's shouting,

This is that bomb, this is a dam buster Jesus H Christ Bomb!
I'll drop it. I swear.

Something's bound on earth to go wrong,
ever since Eve bit that apple, if she'da left that apple on the apple tree
Nah, that ain't how it went down and
songs about it don't change it none.

But, maybe this is me interrupted... in my meander.

What if, nothing is immaterial,
as an idea, it can't go wrong,
and Murphy's law, obeyed, is good, all the time.
If nothing can go wrong, it won't.
Ask the pilot flying by faith in his checklist.

What if,
asking for help helps?
Was that a message? A touch by an angel?
Spirit, the idea? An answered prayer?

Are you familiar with its role in reality?
Something makes these bubbles spin, y'know.

Ignoring is bliss, nay,
No more,
precisely, nevermore,
quoth the raven, shall the man who can read
be locked away from all the stories,
telling eventualities that
men, wombed and un,
have told and tested for ever, it seems,

Stop
striving for perfection and let patience have her way witcha,

whatcha learn can change the world.

Look back. Good news from a far country come our way.
Grandpa made some sense and we built a fort, of pillows
This is a reworking of Good news from a far country, I am attempting to rein in my scattered mind. Let me know if you see improvement or parts in need thereof.
Bunhead17 Nov 2013
[Verse 1: Drake]
Versace, Versace, Medusa head on me like I'm 'Luminati
This is a gated community, please get the ******* the property
Rap must be changing cause I'm at the top and ain't no one on top of me
****** be wanting a verse for a verse, but man that's not a swap to me
Drowning in compliments, pool in the backyard that look like Metropolis
I think I'm sellin' a million first week, man I guess I'm a optimist
Born in Toronto but sometimes I feel like Atlanta adopted us
What the **** is you talkin' 'bout? Saw this **** comin' like I had binoculars
Boy, Versace, Versace, we stay at the mansion when we in Miami
The pillows' Versace, the sheets are Versace, I just won a Grammy
I've been so quiet, I got the world like "What the **** is he planning?"
Just make sure that you got a back up plan cause that **** might come in handy
Started a label, the album is comin' September, just wait on it
This year I'm eating your food and my table got so many plates on it
Hundred inch TV at my house, I sit back like "**** I look great on it"
I do not **** with your new ****, my *****, don't ask for my take on it
Speakin' in lingo, man this for my ***** that trap out the bando
This for my ****** that call up Fernando to move a piano
**** all your feelin's cause business is business, its strictly financial
I'm always the first one to get it, man that's how you lead by example
Versace, Versace, Versace, Versace, Versace, Versace
Word to New York cause the Dyckman and Heights girls are callin' me "Papi"
I'm all on the low, take a famous girl out where there's no paparazzi
I'm tryna give Halle Berry a baby and no one can stop me

[Verse 2: Meek Mill]
Versace, Versace
Its killers, real ****** that's all in my posse (shooters!)
I'm getting so rich that they making up rumors that I'm illuminati (rich!)
Just me and my ****** we killin' these *******, go body for body (murders!)
These suckers be hating, they praying to God that I don't cop a Bugatti
Hold up, drop the top on the rari
Pull in the club and I'm stopping the party
Hold up, got ******* on *******
They poppin' on molly's I'm prolly at Follies with PeeWee and Tip
Of course i went with Lou
I did everything that I said I would do
I really won't tell you that I'm better than you
But we're not on the same level as you
Cause the G55 got a hell of a view
Regular ****** make regular moves
With ya regular ***** and ya regular crew
And you ***** still smokin on regular too? Like word?!
What a shame, my *****
Louboutin blood like Game, my *****
Get left tryna aim, my *****
Like Saddam Hussein, my *****
I'm whippin' this brand new machine
100 bands in my jeans
Call yo ***** Barry Sanders
She done ran through the team
I got hoes out the D
They playing on the team
Do anything for me
I mix that xan with the lean
Hold up, let me get it back
Versace, Versace
I'm gettin' this money, I'm stackin' my broccoli (racks!)
I'm running my city
You might gotta pay me if you land on my property (tax!)
I bought the boardwalk and I parked on the ave
****, my life's like monopoly
You caught a new case and you got outta jail
Boy, you look like a cop to me
(Get out of jail free card?)

[Verse 3: Tyga]
Aughh! Versace, Versace, I brought that **** back, all these ****** they copy
Medusa head on me I'm at the hotel, Versace Palazzo
I rented the yacht for a week, but I bought the convertible Lambo
Six mill for the mansion
I see haters coming I need some more ammo
These ****** gay that's Elmo
So much green I turned camo
Some hoover ****** on flannels
Light light you up no candle
Grip on that handle Yosemite Sam ya, that ***** bang like a banjo
Told my arms dealer no need for a box, I don't read the instructions, I throw out the manual (WOO!)
Versace, Versace, my brother king Trell he in a Ferrari
I don't look the same, my camera the same, I made too much money (WOO!)
Paul Pierce is my neighbor, I told him he should of went to the Clippers
I got some crazy ideas for Versace, get them and tell'em my number
Versace, auggh Picasso, Basquiat I'm cocky
23, 15 mill I'm just getting started
Pop water my water
I walk around on my wallet
I don't **** with Saddam but, that's gold all in my toilet
Statues of Horus, and the annubis is polished
I don't got to, rap about, coke for you to enjoy it
I'm bout' to join the money team, just holla' to Floyd about it
Versace, Versace, I'm taking my money to the Cayman islands (WOO!) Versace Auggh!!

[Outro: Quavo]
Versace, Versace, Versace, Versace
Versace, Versace, Versace, Versace
Versace, Versace Versace, Versace Versace
Versace, Versace Versace, Versace Versace
I love this song!... lyrics to  "Versace" by: Migos ft Drake, Meek Mill, and Tyga ****. by:  Zaytoven.
adriana Apr 2018
It's 11:32
I'm still waiting here for you
Made my way down city blocks
Ignoring people, kicking rocks
But you've reached the deadline
It's 11:59
And I'm still waiting.
jack of spades Jul 2017
Icarus washes up on Miami Beach over the spring break of 2k16 and finds a world where the gods roam the streets,
where his wax wings burned themselves into trenches of scars down his back,
where we warn our children of the dangers of flying too high,
but forget the part about the riptides waiting if you fly too low.

He asks Siri how far away the sun is,
finds Apollo in the red rocks of New Mexico
off I-40 just outside of Albuquerque,
alone and basking in the heat.
The ice caps are melting.

The sun still hurts to touch,
burning Icarus's hands and leaving fingerprints in the feathers of his melted wings,
but Apollo is much kinder now,
soothing the skin cancer with freckles and soft touches.
It no longer feels like a damning.

This is what happens to the children of tragedies:
they flinch too much,
they fall too hard,
they're fragile as glass but immune to everything the world can throw at them.
Icarus flinches at the sound of the oceans.
He knows the wrath of Poseidon.

Icarus rises from the dead with his irises washed white
and his rips etched with Hades's name:
he should have been a child of Persephone,
spring in his hands and flowers in his hair.
He should have spent his days sprawled in the sun's caress.
He should have been infinite.

Icarus flinches too much.
That's what everyone keeps telling him.
He flinches too much at every lifted voice and crashing wave and
he flinches too much when he feels sunshine on his face.
Icarus is sorry for flinching too much.
Icarus is trying not to flinch too much.
Icarus is sorry that it's taking so long to just get over his trauma and stop flinching so much--
sorry.

He doesn't know what to do now that he's touched the sun
and this time it didn't burn.
He wanted it to burn.
He wants to burn.
He wants to feel his bones breaking all over again because
that's the only time he doesn't feel like he needs to be in control.
Why is he chasing things that hurt?
Why does he feel
like he deserves to hurt?
He deserves to crash.

He finally touched the sun.
Icarus feels empty, and
he's still flinching.
projecting myself onto icarus because who else am i supposed to be? not myself !
Ceyhun Mahi Jul 2017
Upon the waves there's being surfed,
And at cafes delights are served,
While the orange sun shares a ray,
At the end of the glowing day.

A summertime sadness and glee,
Is played alongside of the sea,
Who is rosy, pink as the sky,
As the beautiful waves pass by.
With some references to Lana Del Rey.
PROLOGUE:

“’We must stop this brain working for twenty years.’” So said Mussolini’s Grand Inquisitor, his official Fascist prosecutor addressing the judge in Antonio Gramsci’s 1928 trial; so said the Il Duce’s Torquemada, ending his peroration with this infamous demand.’”  Gramsci, Antonio: Selections from the Prison Notebooks, Introduction, translation from Italian and publishing by Quintin ***** & Geoffrey Nowell Smith, International Publishers, New York, 1971.

BE IT RESOLVED: Whereas, I introduce this book with a nod of deep respect to Antonio Gramsci--an obscure but increasingly pertinent political scientist it would behoove us all to read and study today, I dedicate the book itself to my great grandfather and key family patriarch, Pietro Buonaiuto (1865-1940) of Moschiano, in the province of Avellino, in the region of Campania, southern Italy.

Let it be recognized that Pete Buonaiuto may not have had Tony Gramsci’s brain, but he certainly exhibited an extreme case of what his son--my paternal grandfather, Francesco Buonaiuto--termed: Testaduro. Literally, it means Hardhead, but connotes something far beyond the merely stubborn. We’re talking way out there in the unknown, beyond that inexplicable void where hotheaded hardheads regurgitate their next move, more a function of indigestion than thought. Given any situation, a Testaduro would rather bring acid reflux and bile to the mix than exercise even a skosh of gray muscle matter.  But there’s more. It gets worse.

To truly comprehend the densely-packed granite that is the Testaduro mind, we must now sub-focus our attention on the truly obdurate, extreme examples of what my paternal grandmother—Vicenza di Maria Buonaiuto—they called her Jennie--would describe as reflexive cutta-dey-noze-a-offa-to-spite-a-dey-face-a types. I reference the truly defiant, or T.D.—obviously short for both truly defiant and Testaduro. T.D.’s—a breed apart--smiling and sneering, laughing and, finally, begging their regime-appointed torture apparatchik (a career-choice getting a great deal of attention from the certificate mills--the junior colleges and vocational specialty institutes) mocking their Guantanamo-trained torturer: “Is that what you call punishment?  Is that all you ******* got?”

If, to assist comprehension, you require a literary frame of context, might I suggest you compare the Buonaiuto mind to Paul Lazzaro, Vonnegut’s superbly drawn Italian-American WWII soldier-lunatic with a passion for revenge, who kept a list of people who ****** with him, people he would have killed someday for a thousand dollars.

Go with me, Reader, go back with me to Vonnegut’s Slaughter-House-Five: “Billy Pilgrim has become unstuck in time . . .”
It is long past the Tralfamadorian abduction and his friendship with Stony Stevenson. Billy is back in Germany, one of three dingbat American G.I.s roaming around beyond enemy lines.  Another of the three is Private Lazzaro, a former car thief and undeniable psychopath from Cicero, Illinois.

Paul Lazzaro:  “Anybody touches me, he better **** me, or I’m gonna have him killed. Revenge is the sweetest thing there is. People **** with me, and Jesus Christ are they ever ******* sorry. I laugh like hell. I don’t care if it’s a guy or a dame. If the President of the United States ****** around with me, I’d fix him good. Revenge is the sweetest thing in life. And nobody ever got it from Lazzaro who didn’t have it coming.  Anybody who ***** with me? I’m gonna have him shot after the war, after he gets home, a big ******* hero with dames climbing all over him. He’ll settle down. A couple of years ‘ll go by, and then one day a knock at the door. He’ll answer the door and there’ll be a stranger out there. The stranger’ll ask him if he’s so and so. When he says he is, the stranger’ll say, ‘Paul Lazzaro sent me.’ And then he’ll pull out a gun and shoot his pecker off. The stranger’ll let him think a couple seconds about who Paul Lazzaro is and what life’s gonna be like without a pecker. Then he’ll shoot him once in the gut and walk away. Nobody ***** with Paul Lazzaro!”

(ENTER AUTHOR. HE SPEAKS: “Hey, Numb-nuts! Yes, you, my Reader. Do you want to get ****** into reading that Vonnegut blurb over and over again for the rest of the afternoon, or can I get you back into my manuscript?  That Paul Lazzaro thing was just my way of trying to give you a frame of reference, not to have you ******* drift off, walking away from me, your hand held tightly in nicotine-stained fingers. So it goes, you Ja-Bone. It was for comparison purposes.  Get it?  But, if you insist, go ahead and compare a Buonaiuto—any Buonaiuto--with the character, Paul Lazzaro. No comparison, but if you want a need a number—you quantitative ****--multiply the seating capacity of the Roman Coliseum by the gross tonnage of sheet pane glass that crystalized into small fixed puddles of glazed smoke, falling with the steel, toppling down into rubble on 9/11/2001. That’s right: multiply the number of Coliseum seats times a big, double mound of rubble, that double-smoking pile of concrete and rebar and human cadavers, formerly known as “The Twin Towers, World Trade Center, Lower Manhattan, NYC.  It’s a big number, Numb-nuts! And it illustrates the adamantine resistance demonstrated by the Buonaiuto strain of the Testaduro virus. Shall we return to my book?)

The truth is Italian-Americans were never overzealous about WWII in the first place. Italians in America, and other places like Argentina, Canada, and Australia were never quite sure whom they were supposed to be rooting for. But that’s another story. It was during that war in 1944, however, that my father--John Felix Buonaiuto, a U.S. Army sergeant and recent Anzio combat vet decided to visit Moschiano, courtesy of a weekend pass from 5th Army Command, Naples.  In a rough-hewn, one-room hut, my father sat before a lukewarm stone fireplace with the white-haired Carmine Buonaiuto, listening to that ancient one, spouting straight **** about his grandfather—Pietro Buonaiuto--my great-grandfather’s past. Ironically, I myself, thirty yeas later, while also serving in the United States Army, found out in the same way, in the same rough-hewn, one-room hut, in front of the same lukewarm fireplace, listening to the same Carmine Buonaiuto, by now the old man and the sea all by himself. That’s how I discovered the family secret in Moschiano. It was 1972 and I was assigned to a NATO Cold War stay-behind operation. The operation, code-named GLADIO—had a really cool shield with a sword, the fasces and other symbols of its legacy and purpose. GLADIO was a clandestine anti-communist agency in Italy in the 1970s, with one specific target:  Il Brigate Rosso, the Red Brigades.  This was in my early 20s. I was back from Vietnam, and after a short stint as an FBI confidential informant targeting campus radicals at the University of Miami, I was back in uniform again. By the way, my FBI gig had a really cool codename also: COINTELPRO, which I thought at the time had something to do with tapping coin operated telephones. Years later, I found out COINTELPRO stood for counter-intelligence program.  I must have had a weakness for insignias, shields and codenames, because there I was, back in uniform, assigned to Army Intelligence, NATO, Italy, “OPERATION GLADIO.“

By the way, Buonaiuto is pronounced:

Bwone-eye-you-toe . . . you ignorant ****!

Oh yes, prepare yourself for insult, Kemosabe! I refuse to soft soap what ensues.  After all, you’re the one on trial here this time, not Gramsci and certainly not me. Capeesh?

Let’s also take a moment, to pay linguistic reverence to the language of Seneca, Ovid & Virgil. I refer, of course, to Latin. Latin is called: THE MOTHER TONGUE. Which is also what we used to call both Mary Delvecchio--kneeling down in the weeds off Atlantic Avenue--& Esther Talayumptewa --another budding, Hopi Corn Maiden like my mother—pulling trains behind the creosote bush up on Black Mesa.  But those are other stories.

LATIN: Attention must be paid!

Take the English word obdurate, for example—used in my opening paragraph, the phrase truly obdurate: {obdurate, ME, fr. L. obduratus, pp. of obdurare to harden, fr. Ob-against + durus hard –More at DURING}.

Getting hard? Of course you are. Our favorite characters are the intransigent: those who refuse to bend. Who, therefore, must be broken: Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke comes to mind. Or Paul Newman again as Fast Eddie, that cocky kid who needed his wings clipped and his thumbs broken. Or Paul Newman once more, playing Eddie Felson again; Fast Eddie now slower, a shark grown old, deliberative now, no longer cute, dimples replaced with an insidious sneer, still fighting and hustling but in shrewder, more subtle ways. (Credit: Scorsese’s brilliant homage The Color of Money.)

The Color of Money (1986) - IMDb www.imdb.com/title/tt0090863 Internet MovieDatabase Rating: 7/10 - ‎47,702 votes. Paul Newman and Helen Shaver; still photo: Tom Cruise in The Color of Money (1986) Still of Paul Newman in The Color of Money (1986). Full Cast & Crew - ‎Awards - ‎Trivia - ‎Plot Summary

Perhaps it was the Roman Catholic Church I rebelled against.  The Catholic Church: certainly a key factor for any Italian-American, a stinger, a real burr under the saddle, biting, setting off insurrection again and again. No. Worse: prompting Revolt! And who could blame us? Catholicism had that spooky Latin & Incense going for it, but who wouldn’t rise up and face that Kraken? The Pope and his College of Cardinals? A Vatican freak show—a red shoe, twinkle-toe, institutional anachronism; the Curia, ferreting out the good, targeting anything that felt even half-way good, classifying, pronouncing verboten, even what by any stretch of the imagination, would be deemed to be merely kind of pleasant, slamming down that peccadillo rubber-stamp. Sin: was there ever a better drug? Sin? Revolution, **** yeah!  Anyone with an ounce of self-respect would have gone to the barricades.

But I digress.
Nuestras vidas son los ríos
que van a dar a la muerte
que es la vida
Tu muerte más bien divertida Merton
                            (¿o absurda como un koan?)
tu muerte marca General Electric
y el cadáver a USA en un avión del Army
          con el
humor tan tuyo te habrás reído
vos Merton ya sin cadáver muerto de risa
también yo
Los iniciados de Dionisos ponían hiedra...
            (yo no la conocía)
Hoy tecleo con alegría esta palabra muerte
Morir no es como el choque de un auto o
                                    como un cortocircuito
                      nos hemos ido muriendo toda la vida
Contenida en nuestra vida
              ¿como el gusano en la manzana? no
como el gusano sino
la madurez!
O como mangos en este verano de Solentiname
amarillando, esperando las
oropéndolas...
                  los hors d'oeuvres
nunca fueron en los restaurantes
como anunciados en las revistas
Ni el verso fue tan bueno como quisimos
o el beso.
Hemos deseado siempre más allá de lo deseado
Somos Somozas deseando más y más haciendas
              More More More
y no sólo más, también algo «diferente»
              Las bodas del deseo
el coito de la volición perfecta es el acto
de la muerte.
                    Andamos entre las cosas con el aire
de haber perdido un cartapacio
muy importante.

Subimos los ascensores y bajamos
Entramos a los supermercados, a las tiendas
como toda la gente, buscando un producto
trascendente.
                  Vivimos como en espera de una cita
Infinita. O
                que nos llame al teléfono
lo Inefable.
Y estamos solos
trigos inmortales que no mueren, estamos solos.
Soñamos en perezosas sobre cubierta
                  contemplando el mar color de daikirí
esperando que alguien pase y nos sonría
y diga Hello

No un sueño sino la lucidez.
          Vamos en medio del tráfico como sonámbulos
                          pasamos los semáforos
con los ojos abiertos y dormidos
paladeamos un manhattan como dormidos.
No el sueño
la lucidez es imagen de la muerte
                      de la iluminación, el resplandor
enceguecedor de la muerte.
Y no es el reino del Olvido. La memoria
              es secretaria del olvido.
                    Maneja en archivadoras el pasado.
Pero cuando no hay más futuro sino un presente fijo
todo lo vivido, revive, ya no como recuerdos
y se revela la realidad toda entera
en un flash.

La poesía era también un partir
como la muerte. Tenía
la tristeza de los trenes y los aviones que se van
                              Estacioncita de Brenes
                              en Cordobita la Llana
                                de noche pasan los trenes
el cante jondo al fondo de Granada
En toda belleza, una tristeza
y añoranza como en un país extraño
                        MAKE IT NEW
                                (un nuevo cielo y una nueva tierra)
pero después de esa lucidez
volvés otra vez a los clichés, los
slogans.
Sólo en los momentos en que no somos prácticos
concentrados en lo Inútil,                         Idos
se nos abre el mundo.
 La muerte es el acto de la distracción total
 también: Contemplación.

 El amor, el amor sobre todo, un anticipo
 de la muerte
          Había en los besos un sabor a muerte
                    ser
                          es ser
                                    en otro ser
          sólo somos al amar
Pero en esta vida sólo amamos unos ratos
 y débilmente
Sólo amamos o somos al dejar de ser
al morir
        desnudez de todo el ser para hacer el amor
                          make love not war
                que van a dar al amor
                que es la vida

la ciudad bajada del cielo que no es Atlantic City
      Y el Más Allá no es un American Way of Life
                    Jubilación en Flórida
o como un Week-end sin fin.
La muerte es una puerta abierta
al universo
              No hay letrero NO EXIT
y a nosotros mismos
                                  (viajar
        a nosotros mismos
                  no a Tokio, Bangkok
                                            es el appeal
                        stwardess en kimono, la cuisine
Continental
es el appeal de esos anuncios de Japan Air Lines)
Una Noche Nupcial, decía Novalis
No es una película de horror de Boris Karloff
Y natural, como la caída de las manzanas
por la ley que atrae a los astros y a los amantes
-No hay accidentes
        una más caída
del gran Árbol
sos una manza más
      Tom
                        Dejamos el cuerpo como se deja
                                        el cuarto de un hotel
pero no sos el Hombre Invisible de Wells
              O como fantasmas de chalet abandonado
                              No necesitamos mediums
Y los niños muy bien saben que NO existe
que somos inmortales.
¿Pues puede el ****** matar la vida?
                                        ¿De la cámara de gas a la nada?
                    ¿O son los evangelios ciencia-ficción?
Jesús entró en el cuarto y sacó las plañideras
              Por eso cantan los cisnes dijo Sócrates poco antes de morir
                            Ven, Caddo, todos vamos arriba
                                    a la gran Aldea (bis)
-Hacia donde van todos los buses y los aviones
Y no como a un fin
      sino al Infinito
      volamos a la vida con la velocidad de la luz
Y como el feto rompe la bolsa amniótica...
O como cosmonautas...
                      -la salida
                                          de la crisálida.
Y es un happening.
el ******
de la vida
                                          dies natalis
                      esta vida pre-natal...
Dejada la matriz de la materia
                                        Un absurdo no:
                                        sino un misterio
puerta abierta al universo
y no al vacío
                      (como la de un ascensor que no estaba)
Y ya definitivos.
                      ...igual que el despertar una mañana
                      a la voz de una enfermera en un hospital
Y ya nada tenemos sino sólo somos
            sino
que sólo somos y somos sólo ser
                                                              La voz del amado que habla
                                                      amada mía quítate este bra
La puerta abierta
que nadie podrá cerrar ya
                          -«Dios que nos mandó vivir»
aunque anhelamos el retorno a
                asociaciones atómicas, a
                        la inconsciencia.
                  Y las bombas cada vez más grandes.
Necrofilia: el flirteo con la muerte. La pasión por lo muerto
                                (cadáveres, máquinas, diner, heces)
y si sueñan con una mujer es la imagen
de un automóvil
          La irresistible fascinación de lo inorgánico
                        ****** fue visto en la I Guerra
                        arrobado ante un cadáver
                        sin quererse mover
(militares o máquinas, monedas, mierda)
cámaras de gas en el día y Wagner por la noche
«5 millones» dijo Eichmann (aunque tal vez 6)
O bien queremos maquillar la muerte
Los Seres Queridos (no diga muertos)
  maquillados, manicurados y sonrientes
 en el Jardín de Reposo de los Prados Susurrantes
                            cf. THE AMERICAN WAY OF DEATH
                1 martini o 2 para olvidar su rostro
relax & ver tv
                  el placer de manejar un Porsche
                  (any line you choose)
tal vez esperar la resurrección congelados
en nitrógeno líquido a 497°
(almacenados como el grano que no muere)
hasta el día en que la inmortalidad sea barata
después del café, Benedictine
un traje sport para ser jóvenes, para alejar la muerte
mientras nos inventan el suero de la juventud
                    el antídoto
para no morir.
Como el cow-boy bueno de las películas, que no muere.
Buscando en Miami la Fuente Florida.
Tras los placeres anunciados en las islas Vírgenes.
O en el yate de Onassis por el Leteo...

No quisiste ser de los hombres con un Nombre
y un rostro que todos reconocen en las fotos
de los tabloides
su desierto que floreció como el lirio no fue el
de Paradise Valley Hotel
                    con cocteles en la piscina
bajo las palmeras
ni fueron tus soledades las de Lost Island
los cocos curvados sobre el mar
LOVE? It's in the movies
                    las irrupciones de la eternidad
                                fueron breves
-los que no hemos creído los Advertisements de este mundo
          cena para 2, «je t'adore»
                          How to say love in Italian?
Me dijiste: el
      evangelio no menciona contemplación.
Sin LSD
sino el horror de Dios (o
            traducimos mejor por terror?)
Su amor como la radiación que mata sin
                                                              tocarnos
y un vacío mayor que el Macrocosmos!
En tu meditación no veías más visión
que el avión comercial de Miami a Chicago
        y el avión de la SAC con la Bomba dentro
                los días en que me escribías:
My life is one of deepening contradiction and
                                                  frequent darkness
Tu Trip? tan poco interesante
el viaje a vastas soledades y extensiones de nada
todo como de yeso
                      blanco y *****, with no color
y mirar la bola luminosa y rosa como ágata
con Navidad en Broadway y cópulas y canciones
rielando en las olas del polvoriento Mar de la Tranquilidad
o el Mar de la Crisis muerto hasta el horizonte. Y
como la bolita rutilante de un Christmas-tree...

              El Tiempo? is money
es Time, es pendejada, es nada
    es Time y una celebridad en la portada
Y aquel anuncio de leche Borden's bajo la lluvia
hace años en Columbia, encendiéndose
y apagándose, tan fugaces encendidas
            y los besos en el cine
Las películas y las estrellas de cine
tan fugaces

                GONE WITH THE WIND
aunque reían todavía bellas luminosas en la pantalla
las estrellas difuntas
el carro falla, la refrigeradora
va a ser reparada
                          Ella de amarillo mantequilla
                          anaranjado mermelada y rojo fresa
como en un anuncio del New Yorker en el recuerdo
y el lipstick ya borrado de unos besos
adioses a ventanillas de aviones que volaron
                                                        al olvido
shampoos de muchachas más lejanas que la Luna o que Venus
                      Unos ojos más valiosos que el Stock Exchange
El día de la Inauguración de Nixon ya pasó
  se disolvió la última imagen en la televisión
y barrieron Washington
El Tiempo Alfonso el Tiempo? Is Money, mierda, ****
el tiempo es New York Times y Time
-Y hallé todas las cosas como Coca-Colas...

                                          Proteínas y ácidos nucleicos
                                          «los hermosos mimeros de sus formas»
proteínas y ácidos nucleicos
                            los cuerpos son al tacto como gas
la belleza, como gas amargo
lacrimógeno
Porque pasa la película de este mundo...
                                               
Como coca-colas
                    o cópulas for
                    that matter
Las células son efímeras como flores
                                               
mas no la vida
              protoplasmas cromosomas mas
no la vida
Viviremos otra vez cantaban los comanches
                    nuestras vidas son los ríos
                    que van a dar a la vida
ahora sólo vemos como en tv
después veremos cara a cara
                  Toda percepción ensayo de la muerte
                                      amada es el tiempo de la poda
    Serán dados todos los besos que no pudiste dar
                    están en flor los granados
todo amor reharsal de la muerte
                          So we fear beauty
Cuando Li Chi fue raptada por el duque de Chin
lloró hasta empapar sus ropas
pero en el palacio se arrepintió
de haber llorado.
          Van doblando la ***** de San Juan de la +
                        pasan
                        unos patos
                                                      «las ínsulas extrañas»
o gana decía San Juan de la Cruz
infinita gana-
      rompe la tela de este dulce encuentro
y los tracios lloraban sus nacimientos cuenta Herodoto
y cantaban sus muertes
-Fue en Adviento cuando en Gethsemani los manzanos
junto al invernadero, están en esqueleto
con florescencia de hielos blancos como los
  de las congeladoras.
Yo no lo creo me dijo Alfonso en el Manicomio
cuando le conté que Pallais había muerto
Yo creo que es cuestión política o
Cosa así.
¿Entierran todavía con ellos un camello para el viaje?
•¿Y en las Fiji
las armas de dientes de ballena?
La risa de los hombres ante un chiste es prueba de que creenen
la resurrección
             
o cuando un niño llora en la noche extraña
y la mamá lo calma
La Evolución es hacia más vida
        y es irreversible
e incompatible con la hipótesis
de la nada
Yvy Mara ey
fueron en migraciones buscándola hasta el interior del Brasil
(«la tierra donde no se moría»)
Como mangos en este verano de Solentiname
madurando
mientras está allá encapuchado de nieve el noviciado
                  Pasan las oropéndolas
                  a la isla La Venada donde duermen
me decías
It is easy for us to approach Him
Estamos extraños en el cosmos como turistas
                    no tenemos casa aquí sólo hoteles.
Como turistas gringos
                                            everywhere
aprisa con su cámara apenas conociendo
                                    Y como se deja el cuarto de un motel
                                        YANKI GO HOME
Muere una tarde más sobre Solentiname
Tom
                                          resplandecen estas aguas sagradas
y poco a poco se apagan
es hora de encender la Coleman
                todo gozo es unión
                dolor estar sin los otros:
                                                                            Western Union
El cablegrama del Abad de Gethsemani era amarillo
                WE REGRET TO INFORM YOU etc
yo sólo dije
o. k.
                            Donde los muertos se unen y
                                              son con el cosmos
                                                                      uno
porque es «mucho mejor» (Fil. 1, 23)
Y como la luna muere y renace de nuevo...
            la muerte es unión y
                      Ya se es uno mismo
                                se une uno con el mundo
la muerte es mucho mejor
los malinches en flor esta noche, esparciendo su vida
          (su renuncia es flor roja)
la muerte es unión
                      1/2 luna sobre Solentiname
                      con 3 hombres
uno no muere solo
(Su Gran Choza de Reunión) los ojibwas
y el mundo es mucho más profundo
Donde los algonquinos espíritus con mocasines
espíritus
cazan castores espíritus sobre una nieve espíritu
creímos que la luna estaba lejos
morir no es salir del mundo es
    hundirse en él
estás en la clandestinidad del universo
                                        el underground
fuera del Establishment de este mundo, del espacio tiempo
sin Johnson ni Nixon
        allí no hay tigres
                              dicen los malayos
    (una Isla del oeste)
                                                    que van a dar a la mar
                                                    que es la vida
Donde los muertos se juntan oh Netzhualcoyotl
o 'Corazón del Mundo'
            Hemingway, Raissa, Barth, Alfonso Cortés
el mundo es mucho más profundo
                  Hades, donde Xto bajó
                                                  seno, vientre (Mt. 12, 40)
                                                        SIGN OF JONAS
las profundidades de la belleza visible
donde nada la gran ballena cósmica
llena de profetas
                      Todos los besos que no pudisteis dar
                                                                  serán dados
Se transforma
....«como uno estuvo enterrado en el seno de su madre...»

                          a Keeler un cacique cuna
La vida no termina se transforma
                          otro estado intra-uterino dicen los koguis
por eso los entierran en hamacas
en posición fetal
                   
una antigua doctrina, d
Bunhead17 Nov 2013
Lebron James, he's the man. Steve Nash? Get a tan! The king owns Miami any day, Bron v.s Kobe on tv, I'd pay. His dunks electrify the crowd ever night, if you like Kobe, you shouldn't even be reading this, go fly a kite. I respect Kobe, I can't lie, but Lebron, his legacy is up to the sky. Lebron brings his talents to south beach, there bigger than Halo Reach. I will admit, Michael Jordan is the best of the all, and Yao Ming is really tall, but Lebron is the king, and by the end of his career, his hands will be filled with rings.
He's a Miami Heat basketball player (MVP) As Lebron 'bron' might say it "Hey now, Hey now, I aint worried bout nothin''
Spiros Zafiris Dec 2012
the co-pilot, seated on the left, would scowl
the pilot was more amenable to small talk,
on this, our free ride: Miami to San Juan

the brother-in-law gave us a choice,
Puerto Rico or Equator
the ten or so days of our sleeping
on their living-room floor
were fun, the first three days
and he, a Miami airport guy,
offered one of two free flights

having chosen San Juan,
and not caring about the blood-thirsty Bermuda Triangle,
there we were :
in a C-24 cargo plane with its load
of five race horses, well stalled, well fed,
large, leather, hay-full pouches easily
accessible in front of each stall; one in front
and four others; two behind the first
and two others behind these; far
down, in the tail section, sat a man—
his job, caring for the horses

I don't know much about cargo planes
as a matter of fact, it may have been a C-26
but C-24 twirls my eyebrows more—
and I didn't expect it to be so cold up there

soon enough, I found out
we wouldn't arrive in jet-preen time,
perhaps in seven hours, or more

my love, cushion-comfy on the floor
next to the captain, stared, as I did,
to the ever-present, mountainous stars
housed not in mere magnificence but in abstract vision
you will learn much, staring at us,
we both knew we heard
by the briefest glance at each other's eyes

hour after hour fleeted,
my lovey fast asleep, captainside:
the first boom didn't startle
but the horses knew better
soon enough, the yoke started to jump
pilot and co-pilot, 30-year veterans,
tried to reveal only Calm
but the co-pilot started talking to
San Juan—I was to discover we
were, perhaps, forty minutes from the airport
then: neigh-EEEE, the horses
crazied themselves, each kicking
his stall—for, by now,
the one boom had transformed into:
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!--constant BOOMS
and the yoke seemed to fly off
the captain's hands

at one point, as the co-pilot rose,
I could swear he briefly pulled his hair,
as he went behind the cockpit—searching, searching

he found what he was looking for:
a 20-gallon can of fuel—but it could
have been only 10 or 15
my baby was still fast asleep—the horses,
by now, had gone berserk—the caretaker, at the very
end, seemed to be having a spiritual experience,
ready to enter heaven; I may have seen an angel's
hand on the ready


speedily, the co-pilot unwound the cup
of a thermos and handed it to me
I was thinking: they will never find our bodies
and almost dared to awaken lovey;
how she kept on sleeping was a case of
supernal intervention

and lo and behold, the co-pilot placed
a finger on a tiny hole, leading to the fuel tank
and ordered: hold the thermos cup and don't shake—
I'll fill it and you pour the fuel into the hole

there we were:
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!--constant BOOMS
heee-heee-heea—horses
voicing their concern
and with the first cup-full, I didn't spill
a drop—but there were more than two
hundred—perhaps three hundred to go

every time more than 7 drops skipped
the little hole, both the co-pilot and I
deathrattled in nightmares of unclogging vascular tease

we were twenty minutes away,
by this point, and the plane
started to hum
it must have been more than 280 thermos-cup
loads, the little hole accepted—and
perhaps 3 or 4 spilled down

was, perhaps, 3:00 A.M. when we landed
my love started to awake as
the wheels hit the runway

the airport was quite empty
of passengers or, almost, anyone
I wasn't in a great hurry
to tell lovey

mostly, clearly, I remember
us passing the pilot and co-pilot, inside,
after a while, sitting on chairs facing a closed snack bar

such blank looks I've
never seen, before or after;
a crippled fuel gauge pin
almost killed the horses
~~
..Dec. 24,2012..© 2012 Spiros Zafiris
..channeled; spirit Ram; reaching into
the poet's mind
~~
M Clement Jul 2013
There's blood on the floor
And gristle on his cleaver
\
  Masks in the box at the corner
  of the small apartment flat
/
Hidden behind a moto-helm
Driving by fun, of the socio-style
\
  Richard, Phil, Charlie, the gang
  Over the head, face remains changed
/
Travel through the Phonehom
Slashing through the fleshy barriers
\
  Coming on a grisly scene
  Awaiting something new to see
/
Quick rap-tapping
Keyboard strokes
\
  Pushing through the double doors
  This is it folks

For the US, for the US!
The *****'s will fall
  But these two,
  At the moment, don't know it
  At all
I just beat Hotline Miami. It was amazing. That being said, I'm not so sure this poem is... Oh well, what's written is written.

— The End —