Tuesday Poem: Facial impressions

On the map it’s a runny nose
dripping Florida’s Keys
into the Gulf of Mexico.

But when the Beach Boys sing Kokomo
I still join in – Key Largo, Montego…
Come on pretty mama
That’s where you wanna go…

Although you can’t say Everglades to me
without large birds flapping their gantry wings
as they fly away from the evil
that slithers into the swamp
near those ghoul-like cypress trees
dreadlocked in Spanish moss.

And you can’t say Lake Okeechobee
without me seeing the mass murderer
who is really innocent
running through the lake-edge water
looking over his shoulder and tripping
when he hears the sound
of the blood hounds
that he can’t see through the mist
that parts then shrouds
the spectral trees.

And if you say Miami to me
I say vice, Don Johnson
the film whose names I can’t remember
with the Florida chapter of the mafia
that the Chicago Godfather
wants to rub out/pencil in
for an unstable alliance
between the New York bosses
and the Cuban connection
that morphs to the Pelican Brief
that changes into Scarface
starring Al Pacino.

I say it’s the front tooth of a mouth
which is really a womb
annually spawning several children
each with chainsaw limbs
only one eye
and a murderer’s heart.


This poem appeared in Tongues of Ash.  Visit Tuesday Poem for more poems this week.