Sea Grapes and Sea Oats. Jeffrey Jay Niehaus

of any foe—

      Your stone absorbed a cannon ball at impact

      And put a halt to its career.

      Banners

      Of four empires have floated over you

      Imperial Spain, Great Britain and the short

      Confederacy and today our own

      Or should I say imperium of our States

      Who love imperial fruit but not repute

      How far apart from them

      to stand

      A tourist on a rampart of coquina

      And look across a bay of Florida.

      HALLS OF MONTEZUMA

      Montezuma II how could you know

      Rampant lust beyond even your wont

      For gold?

      How noble your broad avenue

      How novel in your capital a cage

      Of many birds chosen from a world

      And canals of fluent imperial trade

      O teocali towering above—

      Home of a Sun you all adored—

      Till Quetzalcoatl came to you one day

      Cortez to us and brought you down

      Your blood soaked altar vacant now

      and now

      Your history alluded to in song

      Beyond that

      who recalls your golden calendar

      Your chocolatl or your pinioned cape?

      PALM BEACH INLET

      A solar afternoon and sand so hot

      Soles would burn as you ran across it

      O glory of young days

      Parked illegally

      Along an alleyway at a hotel

      On the waterfront so I could lug

      A Dacor scuba tank a short way

      And stand before your shallows, your pump house

      And rusty crane so picturesque

      And admire girls whose bronzed skin

      Sang of Florida and don my tank.

      Sun and sand and sea all spoke of you

      And won my soul to love

      and as I sank

      Among the warm, shallow waters I

      Could hardly imagine any other.

      DANZAS FANTASTICAS

      Turina, music full of the warm south

      For any European and for me

      A warm escape into some paradise—

      Not Paradise nor only memory

      Of North Palm Beach and coconut palm trees

      But somehow just partway—

      my own idea

      Almost divine, or half divine maybe—

      A personal savor of Paradise.

      A man could fancy he was almost God

      But I would rather want a palm beach

      I know I cannot have,

      for such a moment

      Approaches Paradise.

      PADDLES AND PALMS

      Some years ago I sat and wrote about

      A former life in Palm Springs, Atlanta,

      New Haven and

      once more Florida

      Almost as a random ping pong ball