coconut grove

places to lay it down

coconut grove

if you want to see Coconut Grove
in a song burst of beaches
it may be necessary to sing
at top volume in a stilted hut
from a hammock porch
where a dozen nearby dolphins
scratch their backs from memory
& a sailboat of supernatural air
dazzles an unearthly sun burn
& all the shoes you ever owned
dry rot while your clothes blow
into a white wind where they blend
& a fish is served by a flowery
woman as a man drinks enough
to know he has not danced
naked in the sand where the
jelly fish are glistening in a
balloon of soft savagery & the stars
are all they should be at night
& it is too hot from a pig dig &
becoming habitual to be happy
in a sing song that streaks
the hair blond & the sand
& the sand
does nothing at all and it does it
all day.

Reviews

[R J Askew]

I wondered if you cld get me twice in two poems...when I read this I thought. none of this is real, i must rule it from my mind...my dark, winter, city, grey, mind of tunnels and strip lit offices, with spreadsheets and annual reviews and plastic cups and not a tree in sight, as there is not a window in sight and there are no trees and not even any litter ... so there are no coconut groves and that is the truth! and sand is a dangerous fiction and singing? there will be no singing... for I... am an extinct hawk...

[W.k.kortas]

Just the eensiest bit reminiscent of cummings in the pacing, but the vibrance of the imagery certain belies any comparison with his minimalism--indeed, the piece is visual in a way that he could have only achieved in those places where he played with form. The piece is beautifully constructed and vividly cinematic. Fine, fine piece of work.

[Ed Hart]

we must have just missed each other....