Decimos

Unless Things Change
31 Jan 2019

by Tod Perry Cudjoe Key Unless things change at the tap This one looks like my last poem. Closing time is coming soon, and I am stuck deep down a hole in a shallow pond of drowning fish. So long ago I learned that beauty is truth, and truth beauty, but from this end of the bar the stools are looking last call empty with beauty no longer sitting near.
A Storm of Tears
21 Sep 2018

A Storm of Tears Julie Cuneo Key West For miles there is no one. Not one car, bike, person, nothing. Not even a bird gliding in the air. Nothing looks the same. Trees are stripped bare. The ocean’s floor is scattered everywhere. Tears are pouring down my face. There is a house on the gulf side of the road. It used to be on the ocean side. Beachside homes never seen before rise through the ghosts of trees that have died. Tears are drenching my shirt. The “things” that represent a person’s life are piled up on the sides of the road. Waiting to be taken away, dotting the miles with load after load. Tears are drowning me. Flashback to my life after Wilma when it was my “things” waiting to be removed. Waiting for the trash man to take them away, hoping my hurt could be some-what soothed. Tears […]
Angry Too
16 Aug 2018

Kalo Key West unlike u I want/need/crave swear words as often as possible to highlight what u brilliantly call the fascist nature of our new normality. the shit’s hit the fan big time. bye bye women’s rights/gay rights/human rights. our personal vulnerabilities so naked. your brown pigmentation. my grab-able pussy. so much lost already. down the tubes in just 1 year/161 days/23 hours/51 minutes/36 seconds. my response poem is not nuanced with linguistic restraint like your call. yeah silence IS death; I’m alive & yelling FUCK (did mother church say not to curse? one of the ex-cathedra “shalt nots”?) so I propose: shitfuck. crapfuck. goddamnedfuck. assholefuck. bastardfuck. sonofabitchfuck. better than that? not me. u can take my profanity as 1. offensive language 2. sinking to base in their likeness or 3. a swearer’s sworn oath to resist the Trumpfucking of America. I pick #3
This Is Me
16 Aug 2018

Edgardo Alvarado – Vazquez Stock Island This is ME What I want to write is too dark Too angry to inscribe to spell out and yes I did promise that I would march on paper but the paper is muddied with spewed words  full of hatred from the other side and yes I’m better than that, I’m better than them and it’s not about how many swear words I can put in a poem (as I heard someone ask behind my back) and yes IT IS about my anger IT IS about not remaining silent because silence equals death death of the mind equals death of the heart and death of the pen and yes I stand before you trying to articulate an anti-racist poem against the fascist core of our new normal and yes Without rocking the linguistic coded boat set out by the ex-cathedra infallibility of the brethren  and of the establishment holding me down today and yes  I can say with […]
Eternity Tree
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 […]

Binge 31 Jan 2019
by Noah Waldron Key West Anna looks around. Her head is fuzzy, her eyes are wide, her knees are on the ground, her hand is clutching a shiny, bright wrapper which is now void of its original contents just like all the others on the living room floor around her. The dark grey curtains block out the sun, except for a tiny sliver of light shining through where the curtains meet, the deep-sea green color of the walls can only be seen by the sliver of light, the office-style rug feels rough on her raw kneecaps, and her legs were numb from kneeling for so long. It had happened again, and it was going to keep happening; she was sure of it. Anna rushes to the sink to brush her teeth, her mouth covered in debris and still watering. She couldn’t remember the details of the episode, and she didn’t […]
Storm of the Century 21 Sep 2018
The Storm of the Century Steven Saint Vincent Key Largo They live and work and play on the easternmost third of the archipelago. It sounds exotic as if it were some faraway Paradise but it’s just a place they call home; The Upper Keys of Key Largo, Tavernier and Islamorada. There is a special language in this place where they make their lives, memories, retire or raise their children and there only are 2 seasons; Off season and In season. The people of the islands love Off season and tolerate In season. If asked directions, they tell you what you are looking for is north or south or just the mile marker, bay side or ocean. Seldom will you hear an address. There’s only one main road unless you live here and then you know the original highway. Outsiders are called Mainlanders. They don’t live here but they vacation, sometimes […]
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 […]

Don’t Let Your Resolve Dissolve
By Flower Conroy Key West Poet Laureate Ah, the New Year! How it promises to usher in the, well, new. We make reservations (or we most certainly do not!) in hopes of finally fulfilling our dreams lives. If you’re a writer and part of your dream life is to be published, you need to submit …
Development on A Dish
“Development” on a Dish Flower Conroy Key West Poet Laureate My fellow writer friend, Kelly Wolfe, asked if I would be willing to share my poem “Development” with her students (a group of aspiring chefs at Johnson and Wales)—to which I of course agreed. One of my poems was going to be discussed and …
De/compositions
Flower Conroy Poet Laureate of Key West De/compositions In his book De/compositions, W. D. Snodgrass alters great canonic poems’ techniques of diction, meter, image, and/or intention in order to showcase how crucial each and every gesture a poet makes contributes to the poem’s overall success. As a result, these new poems become semblances of their …

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