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Poems from The Key West Poetry Guild's Anthology - 1999 Allen Meece, editor
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 KEY WEST STREET
Today I was walking through
the early afternoon sun
on a Key West Street
I don’t know
its name
On the edge of oppression
The street heat
was blessedly
punctuated
by patches of cool
shade
cast by trees and bushes
hanging out
over
fences
Slightly high on the whole scene
the heat and cool pleased
my expose skin
The colors of the fence
bound foliage
of red and blue
orange and purple
yellow
and the subtle folds
and shoots and layers
of green
pleased my eye
Then I saw a butterfly
dancing with a red
promiscuous splay of
bougainvillea
It was a tiger-
like butterfly
black and yellow striped
or
yellow and black striped
I don’t know which
I do know
That it does not matter which
I tried hard to generate
some profoundly conferring
image
packed with
grand
esoteric
meaning
some code
some key
to
the
secrets
we all
seek
but alas
no great word images
emerged
no metaphors
swept my vision clear
all
I saw was a tiger-
like butterfly
every part of its being
moving
swaying
to
an
away from
the vibrating leafy flowers
in perfect rhythm
one two one two
in out
in out
the dance
of life
Mick Malloy
KEY WEST QUESTION
I love walking the streets of Key West
in the evening when someone’s playing
the piano and sprays of bougainvillea glow
in low sun against white boards warming to gold.
Palm fronds whisper to each other
and move their long fingers like lovers,
twining their arms together,
swaying to the squeaking of the soft rubber tires sweeping beneath,
light sheening off grids in tar,
making metal diamonds under cars
parked quietly ‘til suddenly
a face leans out of the door open
to ask as I pass by looking at them,
the ultimate Key West question
“is it all right to park here?”
Deanna O’Shaughnessy
NEIGHBORS
Everyone on Catherine Street
must eat
bananas at this time of year
and mangoes.
Sweet, stifling heat
of solstice summer
and fruit sickness
secure our proximate pleasures,
fusing us like honeysuckle tendrils
vining lushly on the fence.
Pam Strother
CAYO HUESO
Cayo Hueso. Indian Island bones’ spirit dances palm frond
breeze.
Stone (Key Limestone) and bone are funky island foundation.
Pirates pillaged hidden wealth.
Shipwrecked, salvaged 1800’s wrecking wealth.
Cuba connection…rum, sugar, cigars, cubanos y cubanas.
Fishing and drinking. Sponging.
Cool architecture, people fusion: Bahamian, New England
New Orleans, Caribbean, Creole, Cuban.
The one Civil War Southern city blacks walked free.
Great Depression poverty.
Hemingway’s character playground. A To Have and Have Not
town.
Speakeasies, brothels, churches, tourism.
The railroad that went to sea went down at sea in
35’s hell screeching hurricane.
Overseas Highway 1938. A road-tripper’s end of the road.
W.W.II. Navy town. Bars, bordellos, tattoo parlors.
Surreal choo choo train.
70’s. Cheap property and living. Artists and writers and
musicians rediscover Eden or just boogie.
Hippies and conchs.
Chart Room Bar city pulse. Tourism rediscovered swiftly.
Ganja running. Dom Perignon overflowing. High times.
Historical renovation. Resale profits start skyward climb.
One month rent=3 weeks work.
People moths converge neon light bloom Duval crawl
‘til you mindlessly fall.
Pepe the Pughs sport extra-loud cologne and perfume
clashing cacaphonically with neon banter.
To see and be seen. Strut’n’Glitz.
T-shirt invasion. Choking cultural artery.
Nonetheless, culture bubbles like the overflowed sewer
system—through the cracks and seams: restaurants,
cafes, juice walls, bookstores, health food stores, bars,
waterfront markets, museums, sidewalks, whaling walls.
Art is. Like writers and poets battling for truth with pen.
And musicians jamming a heartfelt riff.
And island we are.
Reef Relief, AIDS Help, Wesley House, Soup Church kitchens.
Too many facets to this alluring, cosmic melting pot jewel
just sky of Cancer’s Tropic for words.
Jon Winslow
DREAM CATCHERS ON DUVAL STREET
After we leave the restaurant, Sara pulls me across the street
and through the doors of the Native American store.
We’re hot and sweaty. It’s 88 degrees on this March evening
in Key West but inside, the store is spare and cool.
Turquoise and silver separate me from my sister.
I gaze like an owl into the glass display case.
The store is all we have left; its beacon call warns us to stay cool.
My niece has come along, but finds this sultry evening
boring. She’s visiting her mother, in my opinion, evening
the score. Age six, she was handed over to her father. In case
of emergency, she had to write in her stepmother’s name. Cool
and gray, her eyes are family. I follow them. Duval Street
is full. Homeless men weave flowers out of palm leaves, store
them in back pockets, dare tourists not to buy. “Our sister-
in-law made these.” Sara points to the dream catchers. My sister
loves these spider webs adorned with feathers. “The evening
I brought her here, she saw one dream catcher and asked the store
clerks if they could sell more. Before she crossed the street
(you know Gloria) she was imagining designs, in case the manager said
‘Yes, send all you can make.’” Cool dreams from the north sell here. I
try not to act as cool and distant as I feel. I know she knows, this sister
of mine, that my brother and his wife don’t speak to me. The street,
the house they occupy, unknown to me. And why on this evening is my
head full of stupid hope, this visit to Key West a case in point, Sara and
I only recently on speaking terms. I store away, in separate trunks, our
sadnesses, store them because I need them, believe we need them.
I’m cool to anyone who questions me. I have dreams, too. A case
of dream catchers couldn’t hold them all. And what of my sister;
does she have dreams for her daughter, who this evening
is chain smoking Marlboros? My brother stood on this street,
in front of this store, a month ago. He loved the island, even his wife
looked cool in her aqua dress.
Who owns this street, this brother, me, and why am I drawn back to
her, my only sister?
E.J. Miller Laino
NOISE
remind me to write a poem
about how noisy this town is—
jet above me,
its belly winking
little white lights,
roaring full of
little ran people,
over the bight full of little white boats—
and a big pink building
that wears
square silver letters
as clean edged as
the letters
of its name;
blocks of pewter,
the color of the sky today,
that say:
City of KEY WEST Florida
…a rag-tag elegance
of sound this town is—
Buzz-bomb boat,
get a muffler—
Bright red runner,
Scooter, Berretta,
get a
muffler—
Helicopter, biplane,
jet,
get
a
muffler—
Ambulance, police,
ancient conch cruiser,
air abusers,
get a muffler!
Boats, cars, mowers,
motors conditioning the air;
motorcycles moving in pairs
where there’s only room
for one;
dogs barking,
this island is full of dogs barking;
in the streets, in their yards,
dogs barking hard,
hard in their yards,
hard, sharp barks!
Trolleys, cars, bikes,
brakes squealing hard;
voices shouting,
yelling,
kaughing,
crying, cry out on the wind,
flying out on the breezed,
clacking in the riggings,
teases the flagpoles—
Doors banging,
TV’s blaring,
lovers baying at the moon;
bars full of
bands blanketing
the sidewalks with
clashing musics,
as you walk through
the hucksters hawking,
horns tooting, accelerating engines;
the imagination
of this noisy, alive place—
Even the heat has a face
that makes a noise;
wet and heavy and…
There’s flown another sunset!
Colors blown to the sky
in the square at the pier,
morning and night,
while the jugglers shout
to gather about the crowd,
peddlers bark to get them to buy,
as the sky flies
into another night,
full of lights
and cruisers,
in a town
that never sleeps—
only
dozing
in
the
doldrum
morning
slacking
heat
of
2
or 3
AM.
Amen.
Deanna O’Shaughnessy |
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Date Submitted:
2001-03-07 00:00:00 |
Copyright Information:
Book copyright KWPG, March 1999
Poems copyright of individual authors |
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