Poetry from Daniel De Culla

Cats playing in the corner outside a concrete building.

Isabel G. der Diego’s photo

IN MIAMI AS IN BERLIN

In Miami, as in Berlin, people dress up

To attend charity events

Where everyone admires themselves

For the elegance of their suits

And how well these clothes look on them

Taken out of the closet to do charity.

What hypocrisy, oh my god ¡ seeing me at the “Diamond Ball”

Held at the Loews Miami Beach Hotel

At the Annual “Wild About Kids” Gala:

A Night in Motown – Boys & Girls Clubs of Miami-Dade

At the Loews Coral Gables Hotel

Or at the Choose Your Sound Halloween Ball

On Jungle Island

Or with the South Florida Youth Symphony

At Miami Shores Country Club

Making an Escape to Neverland

In benefit, after a great dinner

From the Nicklaus Children’s Hospital Foundation

Or from South Florida Music Students

Or at the Rendezvous at the Paris Opéra

– The Pink Diamond Affair Gala

At the Ritz Carlton Coconut Grove

Or at Campfires to Cocktails

With the Girl Scouts of Tropical Florida at Camp Mahachee

Or Make-A-Wish Southern Florida

At the InterContinental Miami

And other luxurious gatherings and festivals

Forgotten children, men, women and mothers

Who are massacred, tanked or shot

In Palestine right now, and every day

As in many other parts of the Globe

As before in Berlin that terrible beast

That made a fire of bones and skulls

Not Jews, because they were gassed

But yes of agnostics, atheists and anarchists

Vilely persecuted and murdered for their ideas

Having a great time in that luxurious brothel

Berlin’s Salon Kitty, spy center

From Nazi German Intelligence

Where the criminal and murderous Führer

Addressed, in these terms, foreign dignitaries

German businessmen and officers

After a beautiful German girl gives him a handjob

First class prostitute:

-Drink and toast with these skulls

It may be that one day not too far away

I drink from yours.

What happiness here far from wars

Tripping really well, and with a navel full of crumbs!

This is life, the rest is death.

Now I enjoy Make-A-Wish Southern Florida

At the InterContinental Miami

With the 18th Annual Claws for Kids Fundraising Luncheon.

I’m already trying to get laid at the Biscayne Bay Yacht Club

Lefting the door half open

From where I see the Coral Gables Museum.

My head is spinning like in a Caribbean film session

At the Pérez Art Museum Miami

Feeling like a warrior performer

At Thomson Plaza for the Arts.

I want to go to war to liberate Peace

On a Moonlight Kayak Tour at Deering Estate

And not like others who are going to eat chickpeas or beans.

I don’t know if I woke up

But I open my eyes and I see myself naked

In front of the Phillip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science.

Bombings, missiles, tanks and explosions

The destruction, the deaths, the ruin of the human being

These look like the Frost Symphony Orchestra to me

And the Vampires 101 Pop-up Exhibition together

Making my whole body shake.

I open one of the three eyes; I don’t know which one.

I’m looking like Polyphemus

A bearded giant with only one eye

In the middle of the forehead

And the pointy ears farting (the ears)

Like someone who sings a song in his sling.

I look happy because I am far from the Wars.

Lords of wars, murderous criminals

Death is your mother-in-law¡

-Daniel de Culla