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.
But before we get down to it, check out the beautiful, crowd-sourced slideshow above, and take a peak at the video I made of yesterday's outreach event at the Overtown Youth Center. Poem by Rebecca "Butterfly" Vaughns.
(Eduardo Lis)
Melting
my pack of brown sugar
left in the backseat of the car
melted into drops of caramel
my plastic tray with puzzles
in the trunk
melted from straight to wobbly
my language melted from Castellano,
to Spanish to Spanglish
My food melted in the melting pot
I am melting, summer or winter, sun or shade
To melt or not to melt is not a question
Resistance is futile,
That’s so Miami.
(Connie Goodman-Milone)
We revere the sunshine
rejoice in the Heat,
as we lament the Marlins
and run from the rain.
That’s so Miami.
(Miriam Rosen)
Afiladorrrr!
Grab the scissors and the knives
And run!
He’s not often on our street,
But here he comes!
Afiladorrr!
Loud speaker blaring
Like the scene in “Casablanca”
On the Paris streets!
Papi’s machete?
Check!
Mama’s pinking shears?
Aqui!
This guy is sharp!
Curb service can’t be beat!
En Kendall! As in Valencia! Cadiz!
Y, hoy dia, such luscious, THIN-sliced pan y bif!
That’s SO Miami!
(Ernesto Marcos, Miami Beach)
Look!
Up there in the sky.
It’s a torrent, it’s a deluge,
It’s the end of the world!
Wait, Wait… No,
It’s warming, it’s bright, it’s back
It’s the sun! — That’s so Miami.
(Phebe Hibshman, Cutler Bay)
That’s so Miami
When Skies turn Bluest of Blue
And you know you’re home
White Sands and turquoise Ocean
Tourists in a daze shuffle around
Marveling at the beauty
But you live here in this weather sublime
Forgetting how droll and dull the other half lives
You only know this splendor and wake up amazed
To feel magnificence and God’s hand day after day.
That's so Miami.
(Roshana Walker, North Lauderdale, FL)
When I boldly complain,
“I had to wear boots, a hat, and a jacket,”
to my family in New York. (It was 50 degress this morning).
And they bitterly reply, “It’s 4 degrees and snowing!”
During the awkward silence, they are thinking “That’s so Miami.”
(Diego Quiros)
That’s so Miami, the Bougainvillea,
big bang in the universe of trees,
a pink fire gushing from nothing.
And God, pleased with the bloom of color
grants it an armor of barbs
to restrain the hand to touch
or the heart to own, by means of blood.
Sometimes a man will slip. Ignore the
splintery bark, and wooden spurs
hold the Bougainvillea to his chest and realize
the thorns are not there to pierce the skin.
There are always two voices speaking—
one that says stay away,
one that says those thorns are meant for everyone
except for you.
That's so Miami.
