Here we go again! Check out some of our favorite #ThatsSoMiami poems from the last couple of days. Like what you see? Check out our Tumblr page, where we collect your submissions and post them for your viewing (laugh out loud) pleasure. Click here to make your submission.
(James Arthur Anderson, North Miami)
That’s so Miami: walk boldly to the window
and order it with pride— cafecito.
It’s more than just a drink;
it’s Joe-juice brewed like sugared ink
and looking for a fight.
I like to sip mine slow,
but some prefer to throw
it back like a shot in its tiny cup.
Drink it sitting down or standing up
according to your appetite.
For just half a buck, fifty cents,
it’s an invite to a shared event
that brings two cultures together
to curse Fidel, hurricanes, the weather,
insurance rates, and human rights.
Café cubano.
Not your average Joe.
Caffeine on steroids—with a bite.
(Gil Pettigrew)
At Bayside Market Place
There is a woman
Every Sunday afternoon
Meaning every Sunday I’m there
can’t say about the ones I’m not
Dressed in high church finery
Dancing with her wheelchair bound grown up daughter
Dressed in same
Through the crowds
To the ritmo of hot salsa
Because when folks will look anyhow
they deserve a show
That’s So Miami.
(Al Sunshine)
Greeting the Sunrise with a Yawn… while Ibis comb my lawn,
Geckos scurry on nearby fronds… while Coots and Spoon bills enjoy the pond.
Sirens blazing in the air... cop cars with no time to spare.
That’s so Miami!
(Jorge Sosa)
There’s a point out west, past Krome
where the ‘City’ ends.
Where the saw grass savannahs billow
and bass swim hidden
in pools the color of coffee.
We like to go there sometimes.
To forget the ‘City’.
Out past the tourists,
tourists ourselves,
in a land not our own.
We go home on Sunday.
Back to the ‘City’.
But we take our time going back.
We stop at The Pit for a beer.
Mud on our boots.
Some don’t believe it but…
that’s so Miami.
(Stephen Schaurer)
That's so Miami, the lull of French voices
on nighttime NPR, the sound poetry
of their music, like soft-breezed waves onto beaches:
I dream of the stories they tell,
and then I am told, it is the Miami-Dade Public Schools
speaking in Creole.
Still I pretend, I listen
for the purrs of the poems I first imagined.
