The Manatees by Michele Cuomo (ONE GOOD MEMORY Series)

The Manatees
by Michele Cuomo

We stopped and watched the manatees
along the shore of Lake Monroe

The water was the palest blue at first,
                                      almost white

The sky had low clouds to meet it
then yellow
and pink

A fin lifted and lowered
indolently sliced waves

A sleek raised and rounded back
                                      sidled back down

a ring remained on the water

                                      nothing

then a snout
took a few gulps of air
like a dog sniffing in the snow

the water turned to ink

the streetlights came on
and still we stood
our bikes held on hips

I did not want to leave them
                         in the dark

@michelecuomo2022

PAINTING: Manatee mother and calf by VividSeaArt. Prints available at Etsy.com.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: Seeing glimpses of manatees unexpectedly was a delightful moment—how glad I am we stopped and took it in.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Michele Cuomo lives in Winter Springs, Florida.  Her poems have been seen in Raven’s Perch, Spillwords, and Silver Birch Press.

Deluge by Liza Wolff-Francis (ONE GOOD MEMORY Series)

Deluge
by Liza Wolff-Francis

Florida fish joint, sound of waves,
forever-live-patio-music bursting beach songs,
bare feet in sand, the top of the ocean
fading at sunset, whiskey-barrel-beer.
Lina worked there then, with her carefully
curled hair, her embrace, her stories
about her son, her aching mother,
the way she danced serving food
table to table. That one night we were there
when it began to rain, we huddled,
storm-pounding, bartenders cheering
the falling water. Instead of waiting,
we decided to make our way back
to the hotel. People crouched under
the porch roof or the covered bar.
We moved into the storm like boats,
but soon became ocean absorbing
the bliss of rain, took down our umbrella,
stopped running, and let the water
move over our skin, through our hair,
ease into our open mouths, ears, eyes,
and even with all the people watching us,
we looked back at Lina dancing
and we looked at each other and began
to laugh at how our mistake became a glory
of being alive, a wonder of self as water,
as nature, as pieces of God and a movement
much larger than us with Earth and ocean,
and we jumped and splashed
like there was nothing else.

PHOTO: Dancing in the Rain (found image).

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: I wrote parts of this poem at the beginning of the pandemic when remembering places I loved, but couldn’t visit. It was a bittersweet remembering, but also brought me joy and hope to think of this time, the beach, the rain, the energy, the sounds, and people being together.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Liza Wolff-Francis is a poet and writer with an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Goddard College. She was co-director for the 2014 Austin International Poetry Festival. Her writing has been widely anthologized and her work has most recently appeared in Wild Roof Journal, SLAB, and eMerge magazine. She has written reviews of poetry books that have been published on Adroit, Compulsive Reader, and LitPub. Her chapbook Language of Crossing was published by Swimming with Elephant Publications in 2015. She lives in North Carolina. Visit her at writeyourbutterfly.com. In October 2022, Liza was appointed poet laureate of Carboro, North Carolina, a post she will assume in January 2023.

“On the road again…” by Stephanie J. Morrissey (LANDMARKS Series)

“On the road again…”
by Stephanie J. Morrissey

As a child I’d sing;
when the rubber
hit the melting asphalt;
the muggy city air
caressing my face.
We happily, hot and sweaty,
embarked to the Sunshine State
to see “Pots” and “Granna.”
We’d arrive irritated,
still hot and sweaty,
nonetheless relieved, three days later
at “the house in Florida.”
ENGAGE vacation whirlwind of:
Disneyland; Epcot; Splash Mountain;
Typhoon Lagoon; Boardwalk and Baseball;
Universal City; Busch Gardens;
Silver Springs; Cypress Gardens;
Vero Beach; Ron’s Surf Shop;
Kennedy Space Center; the golf course.
I had summer vacations
kids wished they had.
The All American Dream,
just like the Griswolds,
but without most of the chaos.
When I was little I loved it.
As I grew older I began to hate it,
the monotony; the idea
of what these places represented these icons
of what being an American meant.
The false American Dream
they all perpetuated.
I always hoped
to have the lesson at the end
that all that really mattered was
our family spending time together
Sadly, those amusement parks
were an attempt to fill a void.
I don’t enter amusement parks
of my own volition as an adult,
I just don’t have the time
to spend with them anymore.

PHOTO: Cinderella Castle in Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World, Orlando, Florida, by Vivaltours, used by permission.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: My creative process deviated from my normal process for this poem. This time I prepped by looking at some recent vacation photos, talking to my kids about past vacations we had, reflecting on my vacations as a child, watching National Lampoon’s Vacation, and jamming out to some tunes we listened to on road trips as a kid while brainstorming with one of my best gals.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Stephanie J. Morrissey is currently riding out the wave of the pandemic in Austin, Texas. Since she’s devoid of the ability to travel, she has spent her summer at home with her partner enjoying their birthday month playing video games about being on an island. Since last writing for Silver Birch Press, Stephanie has released her first book of poetry titled The Heart, A Precious Organ through Hercules Publishing, available for sale through her Facebook poetry page @theconcretelabyrinth or on Amazon.

AUTHOR’S PHOTO CAPTION: This photo was taken on my birthday when my kids, my now ex-husband, and I went to Ocean Beach in San Francisco, California (July 6, 2009).

Ficus Benghalensis by Michael Minassian (LANDMARKS Series)

Ficus Benghalensis
by Michael Minassian

I like the quiet blue house
at the end of the block,
the one next to the tall banyan tree:

they say Jack Kerouac
lived there ’57 to ’58
and wrote The Dharma Bums
on one long continuous scroll

like some beat Bedouin
scribe burying sacred texts
inside pottery jars
in the back of caves —

sharing space with his mother,
typewriter and a bottle,
sometimes he felt
so cramped he slept

in the backyard
beneath the dangling roots
of the banyan tree

like a priest or goat herder
dreaming of America
in the long paragraph
of the past:

Orlando, the dead sea,
the hanging gardens of Babylon.

© 2007 Michael Minassian

Previously published in The Dos Passos Review

PHOTO: 1418 Clouser Avenue, Orlando, Florida, Jack Kerouac’s residence while writing The Dharma Bums. (Photo by Maksim.)

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: When I was a college professor, I produced a series of podcasts of visits to writers’ homes, including Hemingway in Key West, Flannery O’Connor in Savannah, and Jack Kerouac in Orlando. The Kerouac home was the most difficult to find. After driving in circles in a residential neighborhood, I stopped to ask directions. The first person I questioned had never even heard of Jack Kerouac. But a couple, out walking their dog, knew exactly where the house was located. Armed with my notebook and camera, I approached the house with some caution. The site of The Kerouac Project, a writer’s residency program, a previous resident had posted that he felt intruded upon because tourists kept knocking on the door or peeking through the window. But the current resident, Darlyn Finch Kuhn, rather than being put out by my presence, invited me into the house and gave me a leisurely tour, allowing me to photograph the interior and graciously let me cool off with iced tea before I left.

PHOTO: The author on the porch of 1418 Clouser Avenue, in the College Park section of Orlando, Florida, where Jack Kerouac lived for a time during the late 1950s.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Michael Minassian’s poems and short stories have appeared recently in such journals as Comstock Review, Main Street Rag, Poet Lore, and Third Wednesday. He is also a Contributing Editor for Verse-Virtual, an online magazine. His chapbooks include poetry, The Arboriculturist (2010), and photography, Around the Bend (2017). His poetry collection, Time is Not a River, published in 2020 is available on Amazon. Visit him at michaelminassian.com.

How to ride a bike in South Florida, poem by Stephanie Casio (STARTING TO RIDE Poetry and Prose Series)

How to ride a bike in South Florida
by Stephanie Casio

     1. Wrap your legs with four layers of sweatpants like bubble wrap. Don’t mind that your sweat from being outside so long has soaked through a pair and a half.
2. Try not to let the fresh sweat glazed onto your forehead bother you too much. Those two seconds of wind hitting you before you fall down will cool you off.
3. Make mom and dad proud by getting back up after having a heavy metal machine collapse onto your eight-year-old body, that’ll really make them proud.
4. Try, try, try.
5. Don’t give up when you feel like you’re having heat stroke.
6. But also drink some water every once in a while. Like holy crap kid don’t make mom go to the hospital for something as lame and preventable as heatstroke. Again.
7. Accept that the gravel bits in your driveway are now a part of your skin, that the lodged-in pieces belong in your system like water and blood and salt.
8. When you fall on the ground — because you will, multiple times — don’t twist your wrist or your ankle. You will cry, and then your parents will cry, and crying people aren’t really that coherent or good at making decisions.
9. Allow your mother to give you provisions as you tame the wild beast that is your bike. Orange slices, animal crackers, and Gatorade are a soldier’s food, they are the supplements of an Olympians.
10. Now that you are comfortable in your soggy sweatpants, have refilled your internal energy by eating food, and learned to break your fall — you have successfully completed the trials every bike rider has gone through. You have earned the ultimate ending of riding off into the sunset on your mighty steed and are now not the only kid in your class who can’t ride a bike. Hopefully.

PHOTO: “Hollywood Beach, South Florida” by tomato66, used by permission.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: I prefer prose to poems, but I like to do poems when I have a very simple idea that needs to be made, such as for this anthology. Working around or with a prompt is a big part of getting inspiration.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Stephanie Casio was born and raised in Miami, Florida. She is currently a junior at Miami Arts Charter school in the Creative Writing program.

An Accidental Vacation by Michele Hyatt-Blankman (My Perfect Vacation Series)

An Accidental Vacation
by Michele Hyatt-Blankman

Arms flailing, feet perched
on water-worn piling,
They soldier against
a stiff ocean breeze
in the Florida sun.

Cross-country cousins,
now young men.
Boyish antics, long abandoned, now reclaimed
in laughter, dares, and fist bumps.

Paradise of play fades into sunset.
The funeral would soon begin
Time to race inside, fix ties,
buff shoes, gel hair.

Joy slips in a window.
A cocked cap, goofy smile,
a quick nudge that goes unnoticed.

When the funeral’s over
and parting words are said,
the cousins must leave behind
golden moments untethered by age.
A sad occasion, an accidental vacation.

IMAGE: Postcard, Venice Beach, Florida (1986), available at ebay.com.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: “An Accidental Vacation” was based on a trip that I took to Venice, Florida, for the funeral of my mother-in-law, a sad occasion that also turned out to be a wonderful opportunity for the extended family to reunite. The sadness we had anticipated; the joy and lifetime experience we had not. My mother-in-law, Iris Blankman, would have been so very proud.

AUTHOR’S NOTE ON THE PHOTO: The Blankman cousins enjoying their first time together in many years on the Florida beach hours before attending the funeral of their beloved grandmother. This was taken a few years ago, and they’ve not lost touch since.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Michele Hyatt-Blankman has enjoyed writing stories and poems since elementary school and pursued both seriously throughout college, where she earned her BA in English and as a Graduate Teaching Assistant in Journalism. Her professional experience has included public relations as well as feature news writing for both broadcasting and print media through the Baltimore/Washington DC area.

Aubade in Casselberry by Amy Watkins (Where I Live Poetry & Photography Series)

Aubade in Casselberry
After Milosz’s “Mittelbergheim”
by Amy Watkins

Alex sleeps in a nest of cotton sheets.
I am wakened by the firing of an engine in the streets
of Casselberry. I hear my young daughter
whispering into her pillow in the next room,
a door slam in the still-dark outside.
I keep my eyes closed. Don’t rush me,
jealous god that you are, for it is too early.

Here and nowhere else is my homeland.
I carry it with me: a breeze, a palm, a fire ant,
lightning splitting the low clouds, walking sand dunes
in the hot gold of day beside waters green
as my love’s eyes in the morning.

I have lived through thirty years and never, even in dreams
attained anything beyond these few rooms
and the limited frontier of my imagination—
no truth, no insight, no unity more profound
than my foot against his calf and our daughter
nearby sleeping. Let me believe it is enough.
Let the family sleep in Casselberry

SOURCE:  Originally published in The Louisville Review.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: I wrote this poem after reading Czeslaw Milosz’s “Mittelbergheim,” in which the poet slowly wakes up in a strange city feeling a sense of connection to the world that is almost transcendent. Unlike the world traveler Milosz, I can’t say, “Here and everywhere / Is my homeland.” I love his poem, but the connection I feel to the world is smaller in scale.

PHOTOGRAPH: “North Triplet Lake, Casselberry, Florida” by Seldom4.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Amy Watkins grew up with the armadillos and scrub oaks on the Central Florida ridge. Her poems and essays have recently appeared in Atavic and Animal: A Beast of a Literary Magazine. She lives near Orlando with her husband and daughter, a maniacal cat, and a very patient dog.

Coast to Coast Blues by Mary Bast (Where I Live Poetry & Photography Series)

COAST TO COAST BLUES
by Mary Bast

Sequoias drummed a riff
across the miles
through swaying chants
of cornfields, psalms of snow,

to sea, flat cool-
white sand, jazzed
waves, the syrinx song
of oystercatchers.

Edward Hopper days:
palm trees etched
on turquoise sky, a painting
lonelier than death.

To halt the salty
appetite of blue
I think of
risqué words,

of robin’s eggs
and Bessie Smith
no one to tell
your troubles to.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: For most of my adult life I swore I’d never live in Florida, picturing the hot sun, flat vistas, and sinkholes. California’s Sequoia National Forest was the rich and redolent landscape of my dreams. Then life happened, gradually taking me from the West Coast to the midwest and eventually to north central Florida. I’ve come to love the terrain and wildlife that inspired Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, but wrote this poem when I first arrived, still grieving the losses that brought me here.

IMAGE: “Micanopy Palms” (Micanopy, Florida), painting by Mary Bast.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Mary Bast writes poetry, found poetry, and creative nonfiction. Her poetry chapbook Eeek Love and two found poetry collections – Unmuzzled, Unfettered and Toward the River – are available at Amazon.com. A Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Contest finalist, Mary’s work has been published in Bacopa Literary Review, Blue Monday Review, Connotation Press, right hand pointing, Shaking Like a Mountain, Six Minute Magazine, Slow Trains, The Found Poetry Review, The Writing Disorder, Pea River Journal, and Poetry WTF!? She’s also an Enneagram coach, author of seven nonfiction books, and painter of landscapes, waterscapes, and animal portraits.

Photo of a Man on Sunset Drive, poem by Richard Blanco

PHOTO OF A MAN ON SUNSET DRIVE: 1914, 2008 (Excerpt)
Groundbreaking Ceremony, City of South Miami, Sunset Drive Improvements
by Richard Blanco

And so it began: the earth torn, split open
by a dirt road cutting through palmettos
and wild tamarind trees defending the land
against the sun. Beside the road, a shack
leaning into the wind, on the wooden porch,
crates of avocados and limes, white chickens
pecking at the floor boards, and a man
under the shadow of his straw hat, staring
into the camera in 1914. He doesn’t know
within a lifetime the unclaimed land behind
him will be cleared of scrub and sawgrass,
the soil will be turned, made to give back
what the farmers wish, their lonely houses
will stand acres apart from one another,
jailed behind the boughs of their orchards…

Photo: ”Miami Sunset,” Bill Wisser Photography, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Richard Blanco arrived in Miami shortly after his birth in 1968, the son of Cuban exiles. His acclaimed first book, City of a Hundred Fires, explores the yearnings and negotiation of cultural identity as a Cuban-American, and received the prestigious Agnes Starrett Poetry Prize from the University of Pittsburgh Press (1998). His second book, Directions to The Beach of the Dead (University of Arizona Press, 2005) won the 2006 PEN/American Beyond Margins Award for its continued exploration of the universal themes of home and place. In January 2013, he was invited to read a poem at President Obama’s second inauguration. Blanco’s poems have appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies including Ploughshares, TriQuarterly, Michigan Quarterly, Best American Poetry 2000, Best American Prose Poems, and National Public Radio. Blanco earned both a bachelors of science degree in Civil Engineering and a Master in Fine Arts in Creative Writing (1997). He currently lives in Bethel, Maine, where he writes and works as a consultant engineer. (Source: Poetryfoundation.org)

Photo of a Man on Sunset Drive, Poem by Richard Blanco

PHOTO OF A MAN ON SUNSET DRIVE: 1914, 2008
Groundbreaking Ceremony, City of South Miami, Sunset Drive Improvements
by Richard Blanco

And so it began: the earth torn, split open
by a dirt road cutting through palmettos
and wild tamarind trees defending the land
against the sun. Beside the road, a shack
leaning into the wind, on the wooden porch,
crates of avocados and limes, white chickens
pecking at the floor boards, and a man
under the shadow of his straw hat, staring
into the camera in 1914. He doesn’t know
within a lifetime the unclaimed land behind
him will be cleared of scrub and sawgrass,
the soil will be turned, made to give back
what the farmers wish, their lonely houses
will stand acres apart from one another,
jailed behind the boughs of their orchards.
He’ll never buy sugar at the general store,
mail love letters at the post office, or take
a train at the depot of the town that will rise
out of hundred-million years of coral rock
on promises of paradise. He’ll never ride
a Model-T puttering down the dirt road
that will be paved over, stretch farther and
farther west into the horizon, reaching for
the setting sun after which it will be named.
He can’t even begin to imagine the shadows
of buildings rising taller than the palm trees,
the street lights glowing like counterfeit stars
dotting the sky above the road, the thousands
who will take the road everyday, who’ll also
call this place home less than a hundred years
after the photograph of him hanging today
in City Hall as testament. He’ll never meet
me, the engineer hired to transform the road
again, bring back tree shadows and birdsongs,
build another promise of another paradise
meant to last another forever. He’ll never see
me, the poet standing before him, trying
to read his mind across time, wondering if
he was thinking what I’m today, both of us
looking down the road that will stretch on
for years after I too disappear into a photo.

Source: Place of Mind (Floating Wolf Quarterly, 2011)

Photo: “Miami Sunset,” Bill Wisser Photography, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Richard Blanco arrived in Miami shortly after his birth in 1968, the son of Cuban exiles. His acclaimed first book, City of a Hundred Fires, explores the yearnings and negotiation of cultural identity as a Cuban-American, and received the prestigious Agnes Starrett Poetry Prize from the University of Pittsburgh Press (1998). His second book, Directions to The Beach of the Dead (University of Arizona Press, 2005) won the 2006 PEN/American Beyond Margins Award for its continued exploration of the universal themes of home and place. In January 2013, he was invited to read a poem at President Obama’s second inauguration. Blanco’s poems have appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies including Ploughshares, TriQuarterly, Michigan Quarterly, Best American Poetry 2000, Best American Prose Poems, and National Public Radio. Blanco earned both a bachelors of science degree in Civil Engineering and a Master in Fine Arts in Creative Writing (1997). He currently lives in Bethel, Maine, where he writes and works as a consultant engineer. (Source: Poetryfoundation.org)