Geoffrey Philp

Huracan

The live oak
that once marshaled
a cluster of pine, stands
stripped of its green medals,
a defeated general,
when the winds how
how, howled, how could,
how could this happen?
A pillow of clouds
over Homestead, pillaged
by the atomic hurl of sand,
ripped young beards
of Spanish Moss from orphaned
saplings' struggle against
the blast of sea spray,
tore tiles from the tarred
underbelly of roof's
pried corners, corneas
of windows, filled
our small house
with the breath of god
until the walls gave
in a thrust of wind
in the senseless stutter of stone
that seeps into the lap
of the Everglades; mangroves
laden with sap, surrendered
torn flags to the sawgrass sea's
fist of blades.

fantasy land

across the everglades, billboards
with tanned coppertone babes dot paradise

paved over by asphalt from alligator alley,
free from potholes below high tension

voltage lines and safe by developer's standards,
bedside canals choked by cane fields

and fast food diners squeezed
between nude bars with dancers

old enough for medicare,
yet advertise, "girls, girls, girls,"

disney world, secure on each side,
a model for urban strategists, looms

along the interstate, where cartoons
daisy, minnie, sleeping beauty

all wonderful and white, are welcome
under the dome of epcot

and are forever young
in a betty boop playground.

alligator alley

i'm with you, brother, tanning
your thick leather, coarsened by years

of drought, beside the caloosahatchee
that empties names, outlived by america's

hunger for gold, sugar, youth, into the gulf
where you lurk, for something careless,

an innocent doe, or some aimless cane cutter,
to stir the water, and your eyes will pop

out of the murky swamp, jaws crunch bones,
then barely move, secure on your all engorging

stomach, away from the allosaurus crowded
heartland, in your knowledge that victor

or victim is a matter of who tells the story--
for while other dinosaurs fossilize into oil,

splattered across the highway, you lumber beside
the stiff palmettos, waiting for the next aeon to pass.

Cover Design: Joseph McNair