Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Warm Welcoming Fire: For America

I cannot write
another name / his body sunken
I cannot stand
the weight, another brown boy is
hanging / I cannot breathe
this generation’s inheritance
the choking stench of violence persists
this accumulated death of the innocent

so instead I watch as we take
up
the pens and signs
throw our hands
up
the voices
and prayer
up
we open
our palms crying
please
don’t shoot

//

count the syllables and cities who home the buried
who mourn the dead and dying
Whose breath is held
Still waiting
for justice

Count the times
We have watched the master’s call for massacre
Held our young and brown closer
Shielding our children from this wildfire
Of slaughter turned acquittal

Remember the young men
Remember America’s promise
Kept secret from their opened hands

Today we light this foundation
that allows for the protection of the killing
and the dishonor of the dying
we burn with the skin and bones of our children
black
dead
but not forgotten
begging

//

what will change this country
if not a young man
shot porous
his open palms’
broken promise
his burial’s
warm welcoming fire


//

Sunday, October 12, 2014

ʻĀpuakenui

ʻĀpuakenui is licking her lips across Koʻolau’s spine
And I watch as their Uhi falls down her curves and floods the muliwai

ʻĀpuakenui is tracing her fingers across the open shell of a crowning tsunami
And I am a recollection dissolving
Trying to (re)member the way you and I once shaped moana

ʻĀpuakenui is flooding light into the breeching bay of Heʻeia
Catching Oama between the webs of her toes
And I am holding my ea at the base of this Manawa
Waiting for your ʻŌpihi lips to bring me home

ʻĀpuakenui is shaking the ʻōpua free from her seaweed hair
Shaping sky for her promiscuous arc
And I am two palms opened to akua
Trying to catch the iʻa that fall from her scalp

ʻĀpuakenui is crying
Waling for a lover who wont return
And I am wet with longing for you

E kuʻu hoa ʻōpua o Hōpoe,

            Not even all this beauty
Shedding itself around me
misting this palapalā
Can distract from my longing for your lips
Sweet like the ʻiwi of ʻōpihi

After the tongues first taste

Wednesday, June 11, 2014

To Wet your scales: NOtes on missing you from Lānaʻi

To Wet your Scales: Notes on Missing you from Lānaʻi

Pressing my lips together
I remember your shedding skin
The way your scales clatter as they fall to the floor around us
I pull you
Gently with one hand
Tighten my wrist around your waist
I want to inhale these pieces before they fall
Before the new body is covered and dazzling around you

As you shed
Yesterdays falling from your body
Like water dripping off cold wax
You remind me
To love a moʻo wahine
One must always be prepared to shift
And take shape

I am not so flexible
So I hang on
Tight
Hoping not to be left behind
My fire dries you
Iridescent flakes, the shape of un-kept promises shake and fall to our feet

The closer I come
The more
You dance into new shell,
Body
And I wonder
How to touch you
And not evaporate your wet
To pull you inside of me
And not take
But build


Thursday, April 3, 2014

Thick Love

The first night we kissed
I found myself split in two

1.
I am the skeleton of a woman who has never been loved
Right
I am a trusting heart in the shaky hands of sirens
I am love so vast is overcomes
It supernovas
And crashes into itself
I am
Here
But she
Is gone
And I know what alone is
I know a night so black
It speaks
I know a darkness so thick
It sings
I am the shed skin of a wolf
Howling at the moon marked at your door
Looking for her body
Looking for a way to hold
Again

2.
I cannot stop looking at the creases in your palms
With my eyes closed
I can feel the way they leave lines on my arms
Hips
Back
You
Mapping me with your every move
Show the places to be loved
Point out the potential
Here I come hurling myself in your direction
breaking my body into a thousands crashing waves at your ankles
you like the way  my water crashes over you
I thought that meant I could stay
Could be held
Tight

3.
iʻve been trying to find a way to bring these two bodies back together
been feeling like something significant was lost in the shatter
Most nights
I lie Awake
Wondering
How to steal the night from your hair
Just a piece of the darkness
To cover my body
To feel like I might still belong to something that will wrap its whole self around me
Its been so long since you’ve been here
And so long
Since I’ve believed you were coming back


Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Once Shes Gone; a To do list


6am
you used to wake up early
unfold the day with the sun
chase its shine til dusk
compress as much life as you can 
into the limits of these segments
these days the clock stays still
you hear the sun ticking over the horizon
and instead
of leaping to the day
you turn over
ashamed
you feel there is no shine left to chase
it all fell on the spine of a lizard 
that didn’t want or know how to stay

9am
youʻve been pretending to sleep for 3 hours
you are officially bored out of your lonely
terrorized away from you sheets
do not wish to stew in your own darkness any longer
you retreat 
force yourself into the world
trust the memory of her breath on your neck back 
onto the cold side of your pillow
there is no room for this kind of memory
you are weak
and it is 
too heavy

10am
run
lift
swim
keep your body too busy to hold this grief 
sweat all your salt 
a tear could crack you
do not let yourself be shattered

noon
eat
you have no choice 
this body is an heirloom 
it is not yours to destroy

One
Give yourself 1 full our to miss her
but do not let the hour spill into the evening 
remember the words written on the walls of your love 
remember the way she left
and how you had to keep secret whatever love was left
the way you were made to keep quiet
their was no patience left in her wake
so its just you
and the mornings you are forced to come to 
and the way all this silence 
chokes 
you

Two 
you failed
let the sorrow fall through
might as well make your way back to the bed
there is no light that will cut through this absence 
might as well sleep
or pretend to
try again tomorrow
maybe

Tuesday, April 1, 2014

When she says she is leaving

When she finally tells you she leaving
Do not
Cry
Do not lose
yourself to salt
Do not let her
Watch
Scared of the ways
You cannot hold
Any of this
Water
In

When she tells you she is leaving
Do not wait for the space she will create
There is no hurricane that can undo this rains wake
Find yourself a corner of this universe
And drown