[Tony Barnstone]

Florida Man

1. The Rocket's Red Glare, the Bombs Bursting in Air

“The star gets ripped apart by strong tidal forces, forming a disk
of stellar debris on which the black hole is feeding.”
--The European Space Agency

It rattled walls and brain like midnight thunder:
some assholes were deploying fireworks,
making me surface from the darkness under
understanding where the dreaming works.
I walked out on the lawn to give them hell,
“People are asleep!” I’d say, “You jerks.”
But then it all drained out of me. Oh, well.
Let them shoot off their goddamn fireworks.
Let their bonfire piled with palm fronds reach
towards comets raining from the splintered night.
Let them give whoops of laughter down the beach
with each bomb burst that smashes dark with light
like the last flicker when black holes eat stars
and crow about roughhouse sex, skunk pot, quick cars.


2. A Whole Florida of Despair
“Brain imaging studies in humans show activation of dopamine and opioid
neurotransmitters during alcohol and other substance use.”
--The Surgeon General's Report on Alcohol, Drugs, and Health

Midnight in Florida was trouble’s dawn.
That’s when the door-boards shook and called.
There was weeping, screeching from the lawn
and something tore the lattice, rattled walls.
I walked out with a flashlight: dark palm trees
tossing dreadlocks, fat iguanas sneaking
off, the ocean’s aria, black breeze,
and found her by the pump house, shoeless, shrieking,
body shaking like a dying gator.
Her eyes were holes, her brain exploding powder.
Someone yelled, “I’ve called the cops!” Then, later,
the boyfriend shouting, “I won’t leave without her!”
and the young policeman fiddling with his gun,
smiling, “Some young folk having too much fun.”
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1) As with "The Singularity," I had the sense that the poem might appeal more as a double sonnet, though who knows! In any case, the second sonnet has been added and the whole thing is now under the "Florida Man" title.
2) Lowercased Hell and Skunk
3) Folks didn't like the troches in last line, so changed "skunk pot, stripped raw, dazed roughhouse sex, quick cars" to "and crow about roughhouse sex, skunk pot, quick cars." It has an anapest with "about" but I think "crow of" is clumsier and "brag of" is plainer.