SPRING BREAK

by Mickey J. Corrigan

Spring Break ramps up on Fort Lauderdale beach and bars nearby. (Mike Stocker / South Florida Sun Sentinel)

They amass like mosquitoes

seasonal, thirsty

buzzing full throated

drinking from the trough

dancing bikini bar to bar

singing across hot sand

under bright sun freedom

in the Ponzi State

Where cities are whitewashed

spiritually unclaimed, soulless

coyotes nosing full garbage cans

their woods stripped bare for 

asphalt streets, pink plastic

body parts and towers 

on Styrofoam foundations

eroding narrowed beaches

while out in the rurals

abandoned washers, rusty 

cars, no jobs, lots of guns

red banners to the past

This is the place 

to party-hardy

for frontier values

fierce individualism

reduced taxes, no rules

endless cycles of consumption

just build, build and burn 

When the invaders conquered

the Natives warned them

of the inevitable loss:

the nose of the deer

will fall off... 

and that's Florida

the Underwater State

Where everyone is welcome

to the final season 

the grand finale

the greatest sunset

in American history.

Originally from Boston, Mickey J. Corrigan writes tropical noir with a dark humor. Novels include Project XX about a school shooting (Salt Publishing, UK, 2017) and What I Did for Love, a spoof of Lolita (Bloodhound Books, UK, 2019). In 2020, Grandma Moses Press released the poetry micro-chapbook Florida Man. The Physics of Grief puts the fun back in funerals while taking a serious look at the process of mourning (QuoScript, UK, April 2021). 

THE COMING OF COLUMBUS

by John Z. Guzlowski

"The arrival of Christopher Columbus in the Americas marked the meeting of previously separate biological worlds." --"The Columbian Exchange" by J.R. McNeil, Learn NC (Painting: "Landing of Columbus" by John Vanderlyn, commissioned 1836/1837; placed 1847. Capitol Rotunda, Washington, D.C.)

Everywhere
trees paused
their slow growth
upward and outward
and leaves stopped
unfolding into
the waiting air

In the tallest branches
birds leaned
their crooked beaks
into the wind
and hushed

somewhere a boy stayed
his axe above the log
he was splitting

and waited
for the smallpox
to settle on his face

like a shaman’s
soft and loving
whisper

John Guzlowski’s writing has appeared in The Ontario Review, Atlanta Review, and Exquisite Corpse.  His poems about his parents’ experiences in Nazi concentration camps appear in his book Lightning and Ashes.