In Ruins as in Aesthetics

Put Down Your Pencils
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.
When I Stop Loving You
10 Apr 2018

WHEN I STOP LOVING YOU Patty Patten Tiffany When I stop loving you after a prolonged period in which you scorn me, I will exile you to Pluto, downgraded from planet to icy mass, something like you.
Angels Whisper
23 Feb 2018

Jah Love Key West Angels whisper in the night Calling lovers to their hearts’ delight With the softest breath they draw us near And dry the streak of the lonely tear Angels whisper in the night
Old Town Clown
24 Jan 2018

OLD TOWN CLOWN by Tod Perry So pleased to look the scruffy clown his clothes were blots on polka dots on top of rings on top of spots paint in drips collar to cuff half a Pollack half a Matisse. He loved his splotches, the bounce into fame they gave to the downward drift of his soul, its aura rising in bubbles and blooms
Hand Over Hand
27 Dec 2017

Hand Over Hand by Kalo Jason-next-door cursed Show off as my Dad smiling wide bravissimo turned a gleaming 1955 Buick Century into our driveway

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.
An Irma Prayer 24 Jan 2018
AN IRMA PRAYER Tom Lawrence Big Pine Here we stand forlorn amongst the rubble, Want to be strong, but feel fragile as a bubble, Where to turn? What to save? What to rebuild in this Irma grave? Can’t drink the water, have no power The Keys paradise has turned so sour Dear God give us strength, help us please
The Fine Art of Professional Suicide 27 Dec 2017
The Fine Art of Professional Suicide by Hal Howland The toothless, trembling old man approached the circulation desk and struggled to speak. Normally he would have been dismissed as one of a hundred lazy vagrants who spent their days in the public library to soak up air-conditioning, surf the Web, harass patrons and employees, or catch a few winks before the county cop on duty ran them off or hauled them to jail. But the staff respected Albert “Papa” Feldstein and held him up as a reminder that one should never judge a book by its cover. Feldstein’s nickname recalled his days as one of America’s foremost Hemingway scholars at Columbia University. He had fled New York in the 1970s and come to Key West to write what promised to be his hero’s definitive biography. As a new Key Wester he had rubbed shoulders with Jim Harrison, Tom McGuane, Robert […]

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 …
WHERE’S MY MUSE WHEN I NEED HER?
By Flower Conroy Poet Laureate, Key West “There’s no such thing as writer’s block… you just need to lower your standards.” – Peter Murphy I’ve spent a good portion of the afternoon wracking my brain trying to think what craft issue could I possibly address this column—which, consequently, has lead me here, to this vast …
My Favorite Position is Juxtaposition
My Favorite Position is Juxtaposition Flower Conroy Key West Poet Laureate In last month’s issue of Decimos, I scratched the surface of ‘what transpires between the title of a poem and its first line’. Although I focused on the physicality of the words on a page, I intended to mine that invisible terrain between …

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