Decimos
We Say
is a creative writing outlet for writers living in the Florida Keys. All our content is locally grown, free range of course. Available in print or digital formats. If you would like to submit content please click below:
Decimos - We Say, Issue #8
Cover Art, "Men With Skulls" 1935
from the Dewey RIggs Collection,
courtesy Florida Keys Public Library Photo Collection
Samplers
- 22 Jun 2018
by Allen Cody Key West -ETERNITY NEAR- The charity pine box they put me in was too small – so they chop’d a hole and me feet, they waggled outa one end. You could tell them miners in the crowd, their skin was white and pasty. But them ones that killed me looked down – avoidin’ the eyes of me family and – the innocent. Then they lowered me inta the ground near grandaddy. Me family cried. But me baby Jacob – oh Jacob – Jacob, he cried the loudest. Then I heard ’em say. . .”GOOD BYE” ”NO! I AIN’T DEAD! I AIN’T!” I holler’d. But I had no voice no more. But . . . But it was true . . . I was dead. ‘ Then it was quiet an’ dark for a long, long time, an’ there was a lota memories. Memories of Life. I want’d […]
- 8 May 2018
JD Adler Key West In an age when the bad guys are winning and the good guys are on the run Maybe we don’t need heroes But villains to save everyone Loki, Lex Luthor and Magneto to the rescue of this world gone bizzaro Everything they told us we’re supposed to do gets you nothing but tired yet crime and sin pay mad dividends and lack of morality is the key to the kingdom when up is down and crime means time only if you don’t have any dimes Maybe what we need is not another honorable do-gooder but a crafty conniving hell-raiser On our side after all wasn’t ‘a villain for the people’ Robin Hood’s whole thing when a tyrant usurped the beloved king exploiting the people for his own aggrandizement George Washington was a traitor to his King so maybe the lesson of history is a Villain is […]
- 10 Apr 2018
PUT DOWN YOUR PENCILS David Leeson Key West The little hand points to twelve. The big hand points to twelve. You didn’t think high noon Would come so soon. Children, put down your pencils. The test is now complete. That time has come with all its perils To take the final walk Down that dusty street.
- 10 Apr 2018
- 23 Feb 2018
- Lives Together 22 Jun 2018
by M.N. SNow Key West “Jesus, David, you forget every time!” “Do I?” “Yes, and I still can’t believe it. It’s only been about a thousand years!” Hannah should’ve been used to it by now, but it still bothered her. She felt a piercing stab of loss thinking that he could’ve forgotten her. Her head was bent and her long, dark, ringlet hair shrouded her face. “But I remember now. Does that help?” Hannah felt a sigh of release ease out—a pressure valve deep inside providing relief. Fifteen times, maybe seventeen, and it always hurt, and it always passed. What she always forgot was that it passed. Maybe they each had their forgetting to get past. “Yes it does, David. We’re together again and that’s what counts.” A question by David had precipitated the conversation—as it always did, every time. “We’ve been together before, haven’t we?”
- The Truth About Pelicans 8 May 2018
THE TRUTH ABOUT PELICANS Kurt Cole Eidsvig Key West Nina wanted a sandwich but Marty wouldn’t stop talking about the sunset. They were riding bikes toward White Street Pier on the last day of their vacation. Nina’s hair salon in Duluth— Full Twist—was doing just fine. The way Marty kept pedaling by her every time they came to a stop sign she knew something else was wrong though. Her stomach rumbled. Marty described the purple. Marty said she’d just missed The Green Flash last night. Marty mentioned silhouettes. Nina rang her little rented bike bell on her little rented bike. She rang it again. The shadow of the sailboat, Marty said. “Marty!” Nina almost yelled it. A group of pelicans dove and twisted and gulped at fish. They made Nina think about airplanes. They made Nina think about twisted steel and last-minute pleas. They made Nina think about crashing. She […]
- The Harbor 10 Apr 2018
THE HARBOR Kim Alan Pederson Key West Have you been down to the harbor lately? I know you haven’t. I can tell by looking at you that you haven’t. Why not? What’s keeping you from it? What better things might you be doing? What thing, anything, might you be doing? You never say. I went to the harbor yesterday. I went today. I go every day, every morning. I time my visit to arrive at the precise moment of high tide. But you know that already. I’ve told you, what, a million times? You know I go out on Pier 4. You know I take a jackknife with me. A single-blade Spyderco Delica4 with a black handle. You can open and close it with one hand, not that that’s important for what I do with it. It’s small—blade length 2.87 inches—but small is fine. The handle has bi-directional texturing for […]
- Voyage of the Band, Part 1 23 Feb 2018
JD Adler Key West 1. OPANU Doug spent hours staring at it, the so called “hull” of the ship. There was just no convincing him it was sturdy enough to protect them from the void. The energy field stretched between the struts of the spherical frame revealed itself in shimmering rainbow waves crashing against one strut then back towards the other. He was doing it again, laying on his back on the floor of the top level just staring into the glittering energy shield and beyond, pondering which stars belonged to him, when Deru-Ti bellowed. “Hu! Man!” Deru-Ti was barely tall enough to ride a roller coaster. Though the average carney would probably be more put off by the bright blue fur covering his mostly naked body (except for the loin cloth his crew mates had finally convinced him to wear). Perhaps the thick trunk, half the length of his […]
- La Bataille Des Bandes 24 Jan 2018
La Bataille Des Bandes © 2015 by Hal Howland. Key West From The Sculpture Gardener: Short Fiction Marcel Anjou was justifiably proud of the fact that his native France had failed, or, perhaps more accurately, had not bothered to produce a single rock star. At twenty-seven, Marcel had established himself as one of Paris’s foremost classical guitarists and as the city’s leading interpreter of Django Reinhardt. The Conservatoire de Paris alum was nonetheless always on the lookout for ways to make a decent living: neither sporadic chamber-music concerts nor the odd jazz gig generated enough income to pay Marcel’s way.
- The Dead Sheep
By the time you read this I will have presumably led a poetry craft workshop titled, “A world of Emotion, Image and Rhythm,” in which we, the class, will “practice drawing emotion from imagery and rhythm from word choices in an array of poetic exercises.” I’m planning on beginning by asking the class, “why do …
- The Perfect Book of Poems
The Perfect Book of Poems Flower Conroy Key West Poet Laureate On April 6, 2018, at 10:26 am on Facebook, Sam Sax posited the question “what book do you think of when you think of a ‘perfect book’ of poems?” Poets responded in a flurry. Of course some commented that ‘there’s no such thing as …
- In Ruins as in Aesthetics
In Ruins as in Aesthetics, It’s Not What You Take Away But What You Leave Behind Flower Conroy Key West Poet Laureate In Jonathan Schipper’s sculpture, “To Dust,” two statues are suspended from a mechanism that causes the pieces to gently grind against, and thus, transform one another: “The sculptures will slide against one another …