OUT OF IRELAND

OUT OF IRELAND 

"Di, di, sicuramente, e credi come a dii."

~ Dante's Paradiso: Canto 5

"I am of Ireland, And the Holy Land of Ireland, And Time Runs On."

~W. B. Yeats

I am of Florida

Long and restless

Driven by St. Patrick

Out of Ireland

Far from my Yeats

To the land of pirates.

Come out of the unholy trinity

Of gluttony, avarice and lust

Come for a touch of my caduceus

Time stands still and ever will

Again and again we shall rise alone

Undiscovered by Juan Ponce de Leon.

I am of Florida

Long and restless

Far from my Yeats I sing

Silent songs of Spanish moss

And conquistadores loss

Weeping in oak canopies

To rivers that live underground

Seeping in the limestone

Of my sunken Atlantis.

Come with me to the sandbar

To eat the meat we're made of

With fake mustache and ritual love

Dressed up as Jose Gaspar.

I am the halyards of the dead

Snapping in the fairy winds

Where any man can lose his head

And decay cracks the mast.

I am the sponge diver's hose

Torn by the teeth of friends

And the ghost ships returning

From the unrepentant past.

I am of Florida

Long and restless

Homesick for my Yeats

Longing to cede

To my pirates and missionaries

Time so still it does not measure.

We who are in eternity

Coiled around the banyan trees

Waited in vain for de Leon

To sip our serpent treasure.

Come dance with me

On zephyr hills

Where fairy lilies bloom and whisper

Names of murdered Seminoles

And pines cry of the cowardly kills.

Come call it charity

And dance with me

I hunt for you in endless shoals

To take you down in low water

Between cypress knees that rise

Like stalagmites of the forbidden fountain

Where you will drink in torrid dreams

The ice cold venom of immortality.

I am of Florida

Time is still

Tangled in wet sheets

Abandoned by Sweet Ireland

Cursed by St. Patrick

Far, too far,  from Master Yeats.

Come from gluttony, avarice and lust

Come take strong hold of my caduceus

Come with me and see like Tiresias

Blinded and in festival garb to savor my frights

Southern comforts siphoned

On wretched humid nights

We shed sticky sheets like second skins

And drape them in the lynching trees.

A lovely coral necklace for you

Black and red and yellow

A silver king tarpon

To reflect the pink Atlantic dawn

Water moccasins for your tender feet

Opens wide my most seductive yawn.

I am of Florida

Opens wide my cotton mouth

Exiled from Ireland

Far from my Yeats

Enter the rotten history

Of my beloved South.