Best Miami Beach Poems
The ocean licks the shore
Like a puppy
Near high, pompous buildings
While in the far distance
Hurricanes are wrecking the coast
There are yet unawakened hurricanes
Why do people give them pretty human names?
Days here are full of sun
Glasses full of drinks
In the numerous bars
Where people forget their troubles
Which they’ve brought along with them
They are facts of life
My footprints are immediately wiped out in the wet sand
And the tail of this verse
Snatches with its beak a seagull
That screams far away
Distracted by its prey
Jupiter and Venus meld like two canaries
Kissing in late February
In a black gap
Between mountainous sparkling beach hotels
As if
The planets have privacy in their own city alley
Sand in Miami
Warm as peach pie beneath our bare feet
A beach just for us
Bob and Kerri
What cosmic gale
Blew these names to our lunar sails?
The froth from ocean waves
Breaks
Like ghostly surfers of dull light
Riding the brink of non-existence
Swoosh and retreat
At the broken ankles of us
Silhouettes
Hobbling past prints in the mud
Sunny Isle Pier flinging her jeweled harpoon
To the starfish abyss
While we are gone
Our boys drive from Lansing to Denver
Forever-
More
They call from the highway and say they’ve discovered
Dark Side of the Moon
On the Plains in a blizzard of pebbles and stones
Try it, I say, while you watch The Wizard of Oz
Then you’ll understand the coming and going
Of our Universe
And all its tricks of sound and vision
Kerri
Pulls my face to her lips
Whispers, Kiss me
While we have this chance by the sea
Tomorrow
The two of us return home
To the zodiac space of our empty house.
City of Vices
Beaches Daisy Dukes and Sunshine
Dirty Cops and Palm Trees
By Great Dae
I brush back
Her wave of turquoise hair
She winces but doesn’t yet
Pull back
From the salt in her wounds
And the sand on her hips
From the laughing seagulls snatching
Last night’s scrap of words
Leftover
From the plates and lips
Of Sunny Isles Pier
Our winter was very dark and very long
So far away from here
Who am I to make such a presumption?
To be so bold with the sea?
It’s unlike me
To have the strength
To pocket a seashell found on the beach
To rise from the dark of my hotel balcony
Kneel at the foot of the ocean
As the sky lightens to emerald
A non-believer
Petitioning the universe for absolution
While the shadow
Of a forgotten beach umbrella cartwheels down the shore
The ocean’s tide falling back
To that crease of Earth
Where our love still gently sleeps
At the mouth of clam
Closing
Orange sky to green sea
Pearl moon
A lover’s gift
Spit out then swallowed
Hours before
Re-opened now
With the tender thought of re-consideration
Burst of flame
Sunrays
My wife worn out
From our first night of margaritas
The air soft as cloth tending to her burned skin
Still in bed
Up there
In our high-rise hotel
The tower cast in new sunlight
Standing straight up
Brushing itself off
A waterfall of cascading gold coins
Shutters and railings rattling and glinting
In the new hot wind.
Wake up my love
Wake up to our new day.
Come down to me
See what we thought we had lost.
A big man
Stands
Roasted pink on the ocean beach
Unleashing his gut over his bathing suit
Holding a can of Miller Lite
Surely a used car salesman in real life
Shows off
In front of a group of friends
Lifts his free hand like the Statute of Liberty
To a flock of hungry seagulls
That swoop to his pinched fingers
He laughs and laughs
“Those dumb birds! Look at me training them!"
Shouting so loud
That all the beach sunbathers look up
Aroused
But the witty birds catch on quickly
Settle back to pecking the sand.
Annoyed
He bends down and rips open a bag of chips
Returns to his gross pose
Whistles like a Robin (I don’t know why)
And the gulls rise again
Snatching one chip after the other
Squawking fighting
He can’t help himself
Amidst the maelstrom of wings
But feed them the whole bag.
He loves it!
But with his friends still cheering him on
His wife casually smiles
And snaps her own two fingers
For him
To please please sit down.
By day six I was antsy
Stayed in my room all morning
I knew this would happen
While the glass-shatter of the ocean waves
And yelps of surprise from scores of little kids
Drifted in
Through my opened balcony doors
From the beach below
Made the mistake of paying attention to my phone
And the more I did
It seemed
The more emails dinged
Like an elevator arriving at my floor.
Last night a waiter ruined it all
As my wife and I were showing off
Dining outdoors at a fancy restaurant.
At first he thought us hicks
With a giant yawn in front of us
But then we spent $15.00 x 4 Specialty Mules in chilled copper cups
And $27.00 on a spicy Tuna Tar-Tar special-of-the-night appetizer
Sea Bass 40 bucks
Rib Eye 45
He then brought an ashtray though I had no cigarette
Told him we’d finish it off right
With cheesecake scooped in homemade raspberry sauces $17.00
By then we’d been there an hour and a half
Though I made a deal with the waiter
Don’t rush us and we won’t rush you
He said deal
So the female manager delivered the delectable cheesecake
With the bill.
I handed over my card and asked for two spoons
Asked her if gratuity was included
Yes she said 18% and rolled her eyes
Flapped off
I added another 30
She swooped back like a seagull for a dropped French fry
Flew away with the signed bill
And just as we teetered up from our little table
Taut with white table cloth
To walk back to our hotel
Amongst the lighted jewels of Collins Avenue
The waiter popped his head out
And yelled across the patio packed with North Miami elite
Thank you for the extra tip!
I thought as if
He was just checking that we hadn’t made a dumb mistake
Or was using us
To shame the others.
That’s when I got homesick for Michigan
Because I wasn’t sure.
Before my wife and I
Broke out of our shell
For spring break in Miami
Just the two of us on our first vacation in 30 years
All our kids wished us well
Though I detected an ache in their voices
“Next time!” one of my boys said in a farewell text
Next time, I said to myself
I’d love that, a next time
My oldest, Hannah, said she remembered a lightning storm
Raging over the evening ocean
From our beachfront condo balcony
And the Goodyear blimp
Swallowing our entire wall of windows
With its silver billow and pilots waving
Face to face
On a sunny day
To us
In the condo we had no business renting
Those long ago times when I was still Daddy
And Kerri was Mommy
Worried about footprints in the sand
And where to hide the Marlboro Light 100s
Remember them?
The good old days
When we were an octopus coordinating seven days
From sunrise to sunset
Those tiny four lives fit to the scale of our hands
I don’t think we ever quite got it right
Nudging our kids through the tide of time
Soaked in salt and sun
And their little drooping bathing suits
Throwing a red ball to the fetching gloves
Of the turquoise waves
Plastic yellow shovels and pails
Hung from their hands
Mimicking the divinity of their very flawed parents
Told them the story of when I was a kid
Down here
My mom and dad let me swim
By moonlight in the ocean
(This is the pre-Jaws era)
And when I came out of the water
A Man-O-War was wrapped around my leg
I screamed in agony all night
My mom saying, I don’t know what else to do
I don’t know what else to do Bobby
So now I remember the welts of the electric tentacles
That storm over the ocean
Dug up from Hannah’s own memory
I could see it too
My wife and kids’ huddled faces
Peeking through the curtains of clouds
The six of us
Sunburned and tired just before bed
Framed forever in that upper floor of windows
The bolts of lightning
Streaking down to the shore
Striking
The turtle shell of the tumultuous sea.
A day before our getaway to Miami
We got out the blue suitcase
And as it sat in our bedroom
Getting ready for spring break
Our golden retriever
Ever vigilante
Would not leave its side
Day or night
To go outside eat or drink
No
He could not risk being left behind
Thought it was summer
Going to the lake.
The former blond model pouts and primps
Swinging her hips
Down the splashing catwalk of shoreline
Sand caving to her imagined heels
Wheeling to her awaiting Israeli mogul
Her shoulders set so far back
It’s as if she’s walking backwards
Puts herself square
Between
Him
And another thin woman
Launches a laugh and offers salted peaches
Wraps her skinny arm around
The other woman’s string bikini of waist
Holds her tight
Upright
You don’t have to go away
She seems to be signaling
And a young Salvadoran girl
Is curled up at the side of the tide
Beached to that surf-beaten sandpaper
Only a towel of brown skin beneath her
People stepping over her
Looking
Shrugging
Walking on
She is homeless of any self-absorption
No cell phone bag or jewelry
An unclaimed seashell
Another time
Her brown round body
Was plopped down wet and sticky
To mounds of dry hot sand
Hands stretched above her head
Handcuffed to the sun
And when she finally stirred and stood
She squeezed her boobs like sponges
And the grains of sand crumbled from her body
Like Cinderella’s gown
Shaken loose and fallen to her ankles.
The crashing waves
Humiliate a man with a beach ball belly
Rolls him to shore
Legs tossed over his head
And also, though much more kindly,
Scoots a little boy at his butt
Back to his worried mother
Who’s holding a towel
Yelling from shore at arm’s length
Her worst fear.
I mean her husband.
Muslim women are wrapped in black
From toe to throat
As they swim and laugh in the ocean
And that’s ok too
For I smile at one beauty
As she emerges
And pulls uncomfortably
At her taut and soaked nylon dressing
She sees me watching her
And since it was not for the usual reasons
Her lips part
As she unleashes a smile across her face
Un-shy.
Yes, we’re friends.
How would these subjects describe me
If they were also voyeur poets?
They would not
I am certain of that
Being invisible
And old
Fashioned
Pen in hand
Reading a novel.