DALI DREAM

Blue skies, turquoise water,

and a melted watch in the

time of rockets and shuttles

when Florida was home

and the beach was a

national seashore where

a few of us fished and surfed

and a few others went nudist

five miles down the way.

Those were the times

when the space ships blasted

and the Shuttles still shuttled

in a grand ole time of

sunshine and outer space.

You could point sixty

degrees up when the blast

of fire and rumbled air

grabbed your bones and

shook your rib cage.

It was a pocket of time,

when I had everything

I needed and a lot of what

I wanted. I had blue-green

water white sand, and NASA.

I had the best kids ever,

good friends, and a boat. I

remember the air was golden

and we are shadows in my

illusion of the past.

Fishing in the surf was

epic, dancing in the tow,

the arc of weighted bait

flung into inner space

in a sacrament of line

spooled out, and a smooth

flow of time to wait for

an orgasm of writhing,

reeling, and battle until

a silver knife flopped

onto the shore at my feet.

Author's Note

Forty years ago, and it is all still there in the persistence of memory...

Reviews

[Degare]

Could picture the colors amalgamate with the substances... Your feelings are perfectly described in conjunction to your experiences (barely a strand seperating the both) ... The waves of reminiscence emanating quite viscerally.
The breathlessness to simply hold the memory and let it ventilate.

Powerful stuff.

Degare

[Vol]

Degare,
Hello, I am so glad you stopped by to comment on my work. Your review carries some pretty strong energy, too. Beyond that, your words also show you know how to approach a poem. For me a successful poem carries meaning, effective imagery, emotion, and has universal appeal, all of which must hang on a strong voice. Oh, and my unusual name is Vol so I notice when I see a name I've not run into before... Yours has a French quality as in "of war," anyway, I really like it.
Vol

[GlendasNotAlwaysaBadwit..]

hi Vol, Reading Relic's review drew mw here. Of course, like everybody who reads your works, I am totally engulfed by your fire. I am there in the beauty of that Florida beach and, I swear, I can almost see those nudists in the distance beyond the foggy splash and spray!
The details of rockets and shuttles actually vibrate my body even though I've only seen it on video. I feel those blasts and can imagine, through your words, being right there!
Yes, I agree with the final stanza. It is orgasmic to land those fish with awesome fight! I love how you detail every movement so the reader feels that line spool out with the cast! So great!

[Vol]

Oh, my dear. I had almost 200 words here when the battery on my mouse died, and when I changed it, I lost it all... I'll try again tomorrow, but it probably won't be as brilliant... For now, Thank you..
The past in separate drawers, the ethereal nature of reality, etc...
Vol

[GlendasNotAlwaysaBadwitch]

Amazing...unlike everything else, it's never boring. My tv's been out 8 days. I've been watching and reading you guys'.

[Relic]

You are blessed to have had those times in your life that continue on in memory. Your descriptions put us right there with you. Great poem, Vol.

[Vol]

Relic,
I think about the patchwork of vivid memories... Real? Altered? Imagined? The feel of wind, the whoosh of waves, bright sun, seagulls float over my shoulder, the guy like me a hundred yards north, my wet shorts drying in place. All of it encased in its own bubble of time closeted in a corner of my head. lots of closets, more than I can count...

[W. Barrett Munn]

Final stanza is epic and well done, Vol.

[Vol]

That would be my heaven...

[Michael Sun Bear]

You have written wonderfully of wonderful memories. Taken me to a time and place I have never been. The last stanza is simply outstanding, so well written. Thanks Vol. (leaner than much of your writing, I like that too)

[Vol]

Michael,
Thanks man. Those were good days. I lived just off the Interstate in Titusville, Florida in an neighborhoo built in the sixties for NASA bigshots, most of whom were long gone. Just hop in the car, five minutes to the Intracoastal Waterway and the entrance to Playalinda beach. Everyone would bring their folding chairs and watch the countdown, sometimes halted with only minutes left. I miss the salt life.
I do tend to ramble, comes from my meandering mind...
Vol

[Lorry]

***WARNING...OLD GIT MOAN ALERT***
Ach, back in the days when things were made to not immediately explode and just how the hell did you manage that with the tech of the day when even that alien Musk cant manage it in the here and now?
Back in the halcyon days that even kids toys became antiques, because they were indestructible and summers were actually filled with sunshine and not snow, wind and rain that is a more normal norm these days, just like it always was and will be in Scotland.
Where kids could chew on penny candies all day (if they would fit in their face) and people complained that gas was up a cent a gallon (and it had only been put up another cent 14 years ago!
But at least we get to watch the millennial get prematurely old as they have to apply for a mortgage for a moccalattecino and have given up the ghost of ever owning anything again.
I remember growing up where we rented TV's and never dreamt of owning one. Now people pay God knows what a month to rent a pocket computer that will talk back to you, order a cab, a meal and tell you when you took a wrong turn and it will be pointless in 18 months when the new version is shat out and delivered to you by drone...
One day we will forget that human contact once existed, as the last robot unplugs us from what we deem reality and we watch the sun implode.
Well, I did warn you a moan was coming! 😀

[Buddhistboy73]

Great evocative poem here Vol....

This is kinda like a snapshot of past time that leaps off the page with its honest and emotive descriptions...

Many great lines, but these were my favourite:

Blue skies, turquoise water,
and a melted watch in the
time of rockets and shuttles
when Florida was home

Thanks for sharing

BB73

[Vol]

Bud...
I do not know if a vivid memory is a curse or a blessing... it is so clear, I might as well be there... but I am not.
Vol

[lov]

wow, this is pure nostalgia. absolutely cinematic yet so fragile like a flashback. i love deeply personal poetry, it let`s me get to know people through their written down words, which is the realest form of getting to know people.
thank you for rewinding time for me.

[Vol]

Hello, Lov!
Poetry is my life... I'm a retired creative writing teacher, and take poetry far too seriously for my own good. When I run across someone who is a natural, whose bones hold words like lungs hold air, I have to stop and say something, so here I am. You have a gift. A pretty damn powerful one. And your VOICE is strong! Your poems contain that one element everyone misses, they are dangerous! As I used to say, Art, especially poetry has fangs and carries a gun, and if you are wounded, you will be maimed for life.
I don't know why we write, in today's world, the knife has two edges... 1. There are poets everywhere, damn good ones, at least as good as the famous ones I used to teach to my students. But I'm reminded of the time I went on Etsy to sell the leather journals I made, only to find three hundred other people already there. The crowd is so vast, you can't see the trees for the forest, same with poetry. 2. Nobody reads poetry any more. The last poetry professor I had told us he was leaving the profession, then asked the class of 35 how many had bought a book of poetry EVER, and read it. There were three of us... in that advanced graduate literature class.
I think of Emily Dickinson, who did not want to publish at all. A true poet writes because they have something important to say about a subject the muse found for them. It doesn't matter who else sees it, though, because WE know! We hope maybe someday, someone finds out before it is too late.
Vol