Goodbye, Summer 2023. The Last Break Before Our Coming Toxic Election Year.
Seven poems nostalgic already for summer.
The Young Should Travel
I stay at hostels to meet the most random people
and tonight did not disappoint
a portuguese guy and a dutch girl
a singaporean guy and a swiss guy
and we drank beers and became the best of friends
and shared stories of homes all across the world
and we never even exchanged names.
and in the next city
a serbian bartender makes me cocktails she’s developing
and an australian with a frenchman friend say they want one too
and a canadian student on her semester abroad tries mine
and my hostel roommates from england and malaysia arrive
and buy the next round.
Found Poetry II
a british girl on falassarna beach:
“I need a drink
I have my mind set on drinking all weekend
I just need a good solid relaxing blackout.”
Shipwrecks
tanning bodies on the beach like shipwrecks of economic stress
just enough sun to get them through another year
of chasing too many things.
Vengeance Tempest
the shallow cerulean is usually half a mile out
before the darker deep
but it’s a windy day on the beach so the sea colors are abused
and the wind grabs my collar
bullies me from my wicker sofa in the sun
in retreat to the cafe overlooking violent surf
which I hope is smashing the jellyfish
that stung me around my ankle yesterday in the calm.
Daytona Beach
there is a riptide warning and the children
wearing floaties and water shoes with noodles under arms
stand at the edge of the shore watching
the massive crashing waves ruin their summer day.
Young Parents At The Beach
mommy plays with the little girl clapping her hands
stomping her feet and splashing at the water’s reach
while daddy plays with the couple years older girl
deep to her neck to jump into the shallow waves
and now it’s time to go
to be lifted out of the water under their armpits and dried off
and both the girls cry.
A New Subatomic Particle Was Found Today
the painter sits at the beach sketching emerald waves
and the town’s at-ease leisure takers smoke cigarettes
as children play and shriek in delight throwing handfuls of sand
while the sun gets hot and the beach readers cool off in the sea
and on and on forever smaller and bigger in every direction.
the heat lightning veins shock the darkened midnight sky
as the wolf sits patiently at the abandoned mossy gas station
watching fireflies glow in their pump hose cafe
getting high off lingering oil fumes and waltzing in the air
and on and on forever smaller and bigger in every direction.
graffiti news at mardi gras on poles and walls
and bar bathroom stalls publishing city opinion polls
and the drunk girls skip down the bourbon boulevard
lifting up their shirts for balcony cheers and necklace beads
and on and on forever smaller and bigger in every direction.
the jazz cats play goon sax late at night
and have moon sex a little while later
and the alley drunks paranoid on fentanyl
dumpster dive for shrimp cocktails and gumbo bowls
and on and on forever smaller and bigger in every direction.
Thanks for your eyeballs!
—Dash MacIntyre
Follow me on Twitter at @HalfwayPost and Threads to interrupt your daily doomscrolling with Dada news, and follow me on Medium to keep up with my daily writing studio. My new poetry book, Cabaret No Stare, is available now.
Awesome. You're multi-talented.