SURFING AT LA PEROUSE:

The complete black sea songs

By

L.A.

To the only inspiration of

these black sea songs
Ms. G.T. happiness
And eternity
 Promised
By
This living poet
Wishes you
My well wishing
Adventurer
Sound voyage
In setting
Forth

To Debbie and Morton:

Where she the she I sing about
There would be only praises all day long
And he the one who takes me
Through stones that wall the sea
Then must I crack
And be no more my shell
But have a voice as beauteous as the sea

To Prakash without whom

I could not have found the courage

Oh Dylan, mighty sailor and wordsmith

How could you drink yourself to death
And think your words lacked power
To stay a mighty course

To my loving son Matthew

Hoping you enjoy these love songs
As I enjoy you

To my young daughter and youngest son

Halley and Luke
Hoping you find yourself well
Tucked in with these poems

I.
Let me not tear the ancient nets
Nor spill the days catch
But hold the rudder and set my sights
On the forbidden Island of Niihau
Where the old culture still hears
The pounding of the sea’s waves
And knows the vast blackness of the soul’s journey

II.
Feeling her gyrate in the rolling foam
Her crunch and grind
How hard her body calls out
And I am bound
To the inexorable litany
Of her black sea song
While her soft cold arms
Fold me into her singing place

III.
Her waves are languid and torpid
A few minnows dart carelessly
In her black pools
Where are the sea moans
And wild thrusts of yesterday
Even the foam is quiet
Nothing remains but the odor of fish and algae
Perfuming the shores

IV.
Come dance with me my lady
Weren’t we lovers in a former life
Well what the hey
A lot of things happened yesterday
Not worth remembering at all
But when I see your light upon the surface
And your splendid iridescence far from shore
Then my soul longs
To drench in your sea musk

V.
Gray black old wizened rocks
You chorus of troglodytes
Proclaiming your lewd judgment
Of my vast empress, the sea
Were she not so beautiful
Beyond your vision
There might be some wisdom in your scorn
But I am alive
Adrift on her chanting pulse
Like a big bass glistening into shore

VI.
My love is newly fresh this morn
And wears her turquoise mantle to the dawn
How beauty whips the breeze around her
How clear her voice rolls into shore
I am melting into sea eyes and briny lips
Like a thing eternal, metempsychosed
Into her dream

VII.
Why I think your tide pools
Are your most sexy things
I’d call them buff
If they were not so sweet
How still you lie with gentle circles
Moving on your surfaces
And spiny urchins tucked into your reefs
Why maybe you have no breasts at all
Just nipples there for me to suck

VIII
Oh god I dreamt I saw a shark
Between your thighs
The power of his body beating still
Your green hair so fragrant
How could I compete
A stranger with a different language
Loving you from a distant shore
I feel so small like some beast
Slouched in the blowholes
Howling his anguish to the empty sky

IX.
This morning I woke to find your womb
A perfect entrance to a safe harbor
Edged in grasses and succulents
And lined with copper gold
How would I know you would find
Such a pleasant spot to conceive in
Blood red orange, burning amber
Oozing its fluid for the next true king
 X.
Waking from a volcanic slumber
Images rise and flow like
Streams of bursting lava
Leading to white rock shores
Across the fishbowl to Kahoolawe
And beyond
Bodies lifted by the wind
Thrown to the ocean depths
Blown to far islands
Like newborn babes they tumble forth
Falling into dark endless holes
To who knows where

XI.
Hey what’s up?
Frisky this morning
Tossing up all that foam
I can’t tell which way your tide is running
Jesus, that’s a lot of spray
I’m soaking wet. Do you want my attention
Or are you just trying to distract me
From my depressing thoughts
Why do I shrink looking at my words
Like some chaotic jumble
These are my songs, my moods
Why deny them? Just hold your sword for me
And like some Roman senator of old
I’ll run upon it.

XII.
Damn you, what’s the scoop
It must be one hellava bath you’re taking
You are an artful bitch
When it comes to turning me on
The way it started between you and me
Just meeting and already my child
Lies in your womb
Sometimes I think my soul will
Never learn your graceful ways

XIII.
You disappeared for a while, or maybe it was me
And now we’re at each other’s toes again
It’s a strange life, this dance we do
You with your dark crevices and sea moss
Trickling so dainty into shore
Just a coquette
That’s what I love about you
So why am I surprised about your passions
Have I become that prude I’ve always hated
Only wanting to get my ankles wet
Sure, I can’t blame you
When it comes to a few deep thrusts
I’d take the shark too
Yet who knows what beast
I’m yet to be

XIV.
Let’s not admit impediment, you say
To the marriage of true minds,
But I am forced to,
I hear your throaty murmurs
Beautiful, you say
Wilder, you cry
More, you chant
Your sound comes from the depth
And takes a long time
To reach my ear,
Strength, you say,
Courage, you whisper
Rolling and rolling
I let it flow

XV.
I sit on the back of an old gray turtle,
Waiting for you to crash at my feet
You are taller than a Viking ship today
Does it please you
Well throw up another spray
And watch me do back flips
While my board flys in your skirts,
As straight as the truth,
Look at me now
Hovering in the palpable sky,
With you below,
So fair, so foul
And me, the simpleton
Waiting to match your mood
Shouting, Oohwhowhowho
Now and forever,
In my innocence

XVI.
You there, you worthless stick,
You lighthouse
Shining to the ocean’s depths
While I am in my foulest mood
Without a scintilla to redeem me
Watching my sweet sea
Roll to her heart’s content
Do you mock me, stick
A white translucent diamond
Indifferent to my passion
To my soul’s wanderings
Oh let me plunge from this huge rock
Into her thousand crashing waves
Let me sink into her blue dimension
And let my dark soul shine
For brothers lost at sea

XVII.
Secluded, listening to your voice
To your sounds calling me
She real sweet now, bro
Forty feet in the blowholes
Get your board, no wind,
Swells like the big easy
Then more sounds
Trumpets and more trumpets
Naaah!. Naaah!
A herd of wild goats
Lunge from beneath the kiawe
Crunching pell-mell through the lava
My heart racing with their beauty
While from my sacred spot
I watch your solitary wave
 XVIII
This land is magnificent
The sea, more than life itself
The lava fields, black and monumental
Shining iridescent stones along the water
Green kiawe groaning in the wind
I feel them as I feel you
Rising inside me
In ways I have always known
Loving your sounds
The quiet folding of your waves
Lapping at the shore

XIX.
Out there now, rolling out of my depth,
The wind howling in my ears
Heated by the spray of your pulse
Folded into an iridescent crystal world
Rainbow after rainbow
Wave after wave
Floating molten reds
No longer am I just
A walking, crawling shape
But have ceased to be
And am not proud of me
Or death or dying

XX.
Hey you again
You’re new born this morning
So light you seem
Your gentle breathing draws my essence
Your easy rhythm leads me on
Your briny wave touches my lips
Like the back of a hand,
Chilling my senses
While screeching gulls
Cry out from shore

XXI.
I am the black sand of truer days
And though Kahoolawe seems
A long way from here
I am the swimmer who means to make her shore
But you my love remain
Boundless in your ways
How can I be one
With an unfolding divinity
Fluid beyond conception
Chilling, cold, remote
I wonder if I will
Endure in your embrace
Or keep my own thoughts
With their capacity for right observance

XXII.
You have been so quiet lately
Each cove a reflection
Have these terrible events subdued you
Terror incognito
As a child, I remember
Every menacing threat
How changeable you are
And I have abandoned myself
Like the sailor cast upon the shore
With his swinish crew
Rutting about him

XXIII.
How often my restless and disturbed spirit
Seeks your rocky coast
And makes a fetish of obtaining calm
How constant the chatter
Stills my mind’s reflection
But if I just listen
To your murmuring stones
And revel in your red streaked dawn
Then all my senses
See infinity in a mote of light
Riding the ocean’s wall

XXIV.
Unreal winds
Sprays flying like kites
White water over white water
Over white water
Huge swells pound the rocks
Ashen boulders catch the tide
Mindless in their incarceration
Long since forgotten
By ghostly twisted kiawe
Standing on the shore

XXV.
It’s only me
In your high winds
Sitting on a log
Rocked by your gusts
Pushed down playfully
Into your tall grasses
Lulled by your watery thighs
My heart at ease
Hanging loose in your surf
And I wade in my rubber boots
Like a blind man
Just cast my net
And maybe catch some
Then they mine

XXVI.
Hey waves
Rolling naked in the dawn
Your sweet little tits are up again
Inviting, rising like blue mountains
And your small triangle
Frothy down below
Come show me
I have a good feeling about us today
A wind has lifted my love
And I am holding snugly in your barrels
Your secret sharer
Surfing peaks of burnished gold

XXVII.
I think for now I’ll keep my distance
For I have doubled up
Carrying your tablet of jade
Instead let me bow to you
As though offering a gift
Though my feet recoil
Oh Ku, Ku
Let my mad songs
Reveal your dwindling power
Too late now
To condemn you for your past
But look to your future!
Great is the peril
For those lost in your swells

XXVIII.
A choppy surf
Waves cresting at fourteen feet
Sliding pale blue walls of sea
I pick my way along the lava trail
Stumbling in the wind
On the brink of a chasm
Looking below, trembling
I dread your embrace
It is not that I do not love you
Or that your home is too far away
But I am blown back
Like the petals of the lehua

XXIX.
I am your solitary lover, beyond time
Lying now in your sandy cove
Sea cosmetics thrown from our bed
Debris strewn about us
Above me you sit
Wet and transpiring
Pink shells and coral lips
Weaving patterns on my enlightened heart
And though for now
I can not join you in your counsel
I can take my place beside you
Combing your pebbled shore

XXX.
I was the child by your shore
Who lay at your breasts
Enfolded nightly in your arms
While whispering voices
By the window went
It was my time completely
And I remember my brown body
Full and firm
The dark rings about my head
And don’t you think I had a shovel
In my hand and walked your beaches
The small conqueror who dreams
Is it not passing brave to be a king
And ride in triumph through Persepolis

XXXI.
Clouds over Haleakala gathering force
Stretched across the lava fields
Their last white feathers
Touching on Kahoolawe
And here and there your brush strokes
Black dappled streaks
Like immense caligraphies
Working their way down volcanic slopes
The sun painting its golden beaches
The stones grinding at the water’s edge
While my heart keeps hammering
On heaven’s door

XXXII.
Jealous today, pelting me with rain
Instead of tearing her eyes out,
You made me walk back
To put the top up on my car
Well I wanted you to meet her
You know our time together was different
You’re a woman, she’s a girl
Beauty must have two scales
One for each of you

XXXIII.
Comte La Perouse, she calls me
Her wide mouth flowing with laughter
Sitting in my sheltered teahouse
Under the kiawe watching the waves
She’s a bit of a turn-on
Greedily eating her food like she can’t get enough
Telling me a hot story
I told the nurse this morning
No, I don’t care to put on a white gown
What am I covering?
Doesn’t he want to examine me?
Her face glowing, when I make love
I don’t want perversity. I want to fuck
What is it about perversity?
I used to clean house
There were chains on this guy’s bed
Why would anyone want to be tied up?
Her talk drifted like feathers
Leaving me with guard posts
On the inside as well as the outside

XXXIV.
I thought, is it my turn?
Shall I reveal my perversity?
Confess my abnormal soul?
Or tell this graceful girl
How I make love to you
My sea woman
So casual and easy
Just sweet songs
Humming in my ears

XXXV.
Just us, not a soul
A breathing timeless world
Before there were words
Rising and descending
The force carrying your waves
Driving my heart as well
To a passionate caress
Indelible lines of soft white pebbles
Black rock, damp pools
Your fragrant yellow seaweed
Dizzying my senses
Feeling your light touch
On my back

XXXVI.
A du ll rainy day
And I roast on the spit
Skewered by desire
Mother, wife, daughter
I want them all, black rock like walls
Further than the eye can see
Rolling volcanic mounds of earth
Rolling hills, rolling waves beyond the shore
While my heart is burning, blackening
Like thick clouds hanging over Kahoolave
In many lands goodness dwells
But in your vast ocean
I see only a false heart’s history
 XXXVII.
My love swears she is made of truth
And I believe her, though she lies
Hoping that I too might conceal
That I another love, who loves me not
But sighs on one who fits her passion best
What link is forged, what complications rest
She is my love’s best friend
And I still love her who loved me once
As well as her who loves another
What veils of constancy are hidden here
Free me, unbind my eyes
Before I surfeit on this lovesick feast

XXXVIII.
These are the perturbations of my soul
So many fallen stories
Adventures filling blank pages
When coming home means more to me
Than just a country or a familiar shore
My time is now to follow your wide sea
The wave I ride has a current
Who knows when
The tide will cease
Or the mysteries reveal themselves
For all time wasted and drained
I set my course

XXXIX.
Well I have come to know you
And carry you here
Beside me
Like a witch’s familiar
Flinging your spays upon the shore
For better or worse
I am in your spell
No longer do I seek your beauty
What I crave lies deep within
Etched in your soul
I cry, I cry
For now, my time is better spent
Learning how to serve your ways
 XL.
I may talk about you but not the eternal you
You are the whole of swimmers in your depth
And ships upon your surface
Your way is to spare nothing
Regardless of its beauty
All that rises from your ocean floor
Is either much at once
Or unfathomable
And yet I flow with you
Through breathing waves
Changing climates, surges and calms
Deep currents beyond sea knowledge
Beyond my experience

XLI.
Yes! Yes!
Bright sunlight
Striking shadows on Kahoolave’s walls
Rivulets of amber oozing from her surface
And I am filled with perversity
Imagining holes to sink my rod
To what depths must I go
To satisfy my lust
And I am crazy for the smell of you
After four days of Kona winds
Didn’t we once sit on this rock
Gazing on her island form
Consumed by passions
Until we burnt each other out

XLII.
My love, have you wakened from your bed
And already must I force my thoughts upon you
When you so sweetly offer yours to me
This lava trail I walk is your choosing
And I may take with me just a few belongings
Step by step the story
When there is one will emerge
My path lies covered in the distance
White markings show the trail
A bit further now
I follow closely
Noticing each foothold
Until I come out high above the sea
To view white caps stretched on the horizon
Rocky cliffs lined with carvings
Forgotten sculptures
And below me a seat of stone
Lined by holes buried in the rock
For me to place my rod
And watch my fishing grounds across the bay
Where Kahoolave like a great white whale
Blows up steam

XLIII.
Between your love and mine
There is a bellows,
Breathing inexhaustible
Between crashing waves and quiet coves
And we are neither
Substance nor permanent states
But rather a courteous pair
Joined by the vicissitudes of the sea
And though you may appear to be
A flattering shadow of my wild self
In truth, you are my opposite pole
Without you there is no fixed course
No navigation, no grounding
No high aspirations
No true life

XLIV.
Today we made our camp
On the same beach
Where my love and I conceived
You were in the brightest mood,
Infected by the screaming of the children
The jeeps mad bouncing, bumping ride
Carrying backpacks from the lighthouse
Down the lava trail
The wind tearing at the pebbled beach
Out of reach, beyond fishermen
Two white coral kahi moe’s
For shelter in the night
And I delirious with pleasure
Showing you places of beauty
Pools and wild grasses, russets and greens
Until I felt a loss of footing
A slow timeless fall striking the lava
The searing pain
Blood dripping down my face
Nose, cheek, chin, hands
I did it I thought, half believing, despairing
And you so intently examining my face
Look at you, oh you
Now you are a true wild man
Taking my head in your lap
Listening for guidance

XLV.
Wild face you call me
Dreaming together
Bathing my cuts
How tender you approach
A loving spirit
Offering the message
Leave now, get the children
The sun is low on the horizon
And then the form of you
In the dusk in front of the jeep
Your straight blonde hair
And tall body bouncing
High into the air,
A new creature born
A hoofed animal flashing in the headlights
While the jeep moves over boulders,
Hardly grinding gears
Mesmerized by the divinity of a waterbuck
You brought us out
To fiery golds, oranges and reds

XLVI.
Leaving the children to watch a video
The hospital’s emergency room
The peaceful ether of the night
The doctor’s small careful stitches
Driving home
Respectful of the silence
We are in awe of La Perouse
The ancient wordless knowing
Gathering, forming
An intimacy of comprehension,
I see your vivid spirit
Acting wisely
Moving beyond the body
Into timeless reaches
And true sleep

XLVII.
Making pancakes, I have my insight
These last few weeks of seeing
How my life’s is spent
In such denial of my love
My heart breaking its sleeves
The juices pouring
Into every wave and tide pool
My body waking muscle and bone
Singing with the ocean’s song
At the edge of high cliffs
On the King’s highway
On small lava trails
Leading to the sea
Too much for me to hold
These old restrictions buried in my brain
Striking one last blow
Until I know
That I am anchored
On your quiet shore

XLVIII.
I had my stitches out today
One last reminder
Of my earlier days
What will it be like
When I see you next
My heart longs
To touch your splendid form
Renew our acquaintance
On a slightly different footing
With more intimations
I am newly risen
Outside the constant currents of energy
Waking into the world
To more subtle forms
And unlike others
Who are full and over flowing
I am your solitary traveler
Watching your iridescent yellow waves
Enter and fill my heart

XLIX.
May 30, 1786
Jean-Francoise Galaup, Comte De La Perouse
First navigator to steer his frigates
La Boussole and L’Astrolabe
To beaches and islands unknown
And now a few centuries later
I land here on that same Keionio Beach
Do I bear a kinship to this Admiral man
Or is this another terror incognito
Buried in my ocean depths

Standing on their stretch of white pebbled shore

Gathered spaciously in the dazzling light
Of the underworld, living where the dead go
Beings unconscious of your destiny
Seeing you from across the bay
Lowering your longboats
This haole seafaring man

Tell me right off the bat

What thoughts entered your brain
When you saw their massive
Legs like tree trunks
Not a group of court poets
Strolling in the park
Was your vision shattered
By dazzling light
Your first moment struck by
Six hundred years of continuous survival
In a world of burnt lava
In thatched shelters
With shallow wells hidden in the rocks
Did you enter boundless dimensions
Of endless seas rolling against cliffs
Before you landed on their shore
Were you angry at the murder of Captain Cook
Or did you feel a patient heart
Were you perceptive of their gifts
And love these people
As you love the truth
In that remote place
Did you find some treasure

L.
Shark Waters
It’s a warm day, Miah
And there are thin beads
Of perspiration on your lips
Your wide face smiles kindly
What was it like out there
With only a spear
The blood of a fish
Caught moments ago
Crushed under your arm
The white shark appearing
Outside the currents between
The cliffs of Kanaio and Kahoolave
Not a reef shark but one of
Those massive ones
Smelling the blood
Circling you in the water
Not looking for a fight
But for an easy feed
Beating down on you from a distance
And your heart jacking off
Smashing his head
Each time he came close
Discouraging him
Making him work hard
Sharks lazy, you say
Not so different from people
But he hang with me
Come again and again
All the way back to La Perouse
And each time he rams
Your world bifurcates in so many places
The depths enclose you
Taking you home
Gathering you
Like beads of sweat
On your lip
 LI.
Where I fell and cut my face
Your pool has dried
No traces of blood on the rock
And behind it, the rock
Where I slipped
Covered with succulents
Joyous yellow protrusions
Cells like surface membranes
Waiting to pop their juices
And burst forth
And in your womb
I feel the copper muddy soil of conception
Forming like an aria from La Boheme
Opening me, gathering me up
A week ago your wild jealousy
Chased my new waterbuck
From our sleeping place
But now your heart has softened
Your slender grasses
Caress my face
Abrade my scars
Like bars of music
Full of measure
Rejoicing my way home

LII.
I found your slippers
Still in our coral bed
Ones with the Ono’s on them
And feel their bumpy surface
As they touch your soles
So dear to me now you are that
I could no longer live without you
Your treasures
Like yellow gold
Rise from the ground
We are true minds truly married
Filled with a sacred impulse
A pearly substance
Oozing from our hearts
 LIII.
You catch fish
Too low, wait for the tide
He says, dark hair above his white shirt
Rubber black boots clasping his ankles
Red setter dog playing in the tide pools
A game rolling back to back with her mistress.
She’s your lady
No strangers to the water
Ancient people still living ancient ways
As time filled travelers
Pass them by
Fresh cuts in the kiave
Turn reddish brown
A white stone hangs on its limb

LIV.
Oh my love
Heaven has set
Her emerald gift
About your heart
A radiant presence
Gracious and dazzling
Circled by friends
Even the cool air loves you
Caressing this spot
Above the sea
The thin rain
Refreshing and new
Feels your acceptance
Now is your time
To turn around a million years
Of crawling backwards
I don’t know how we met
But I have seen ships
Crossing the ocean
Guided by your way
Rolling from dawn
To lighted dusk

LV.
Was it just yesterday
We celebrated your birthday
Since that moment I’ve walked
The ancient lava trail
The King’s highway
Feeling your presence
Knowing it’s you
Without needing to tell myself,
Now I wear a visible scar
A mark of yet another
Coupling between us
Subtle forms
Rock and flesh melt
And some pieces of you
Are under my skin
Leaving me stranded
Only an approximation
Waiting for your transport
To carry me from certain pleasures
To what is unfathomable

LVI.
How, I ask my self
Does my new love
Differ from my old
One long distance
The other near
Equal in frustration
My emptiness
Waits for you
Close by
To enter my space
For a brief moment
Beauty’s hammer
Fashions me
A golden drop
Seeps from a branch
Translucent
Back lit by sunlight

LVII.
My sloop anchored in the harbor
Sways with the morning breeze
Calling me
How can I crack on
Last night I thought
I’d never feel this way again
How quiet and strong I am
In your arms
So in touch with your rhythms
My self rising
And falling into your belly
Will your spell ever break
You are my light my doom
Feeling your closeness
I feed upon you like a sickness
No amount of you is enough
One need filled
Another takes its place
Pity me, release me
Sail me home to my precious shore
Waiting and waiting across the bay

LVIII.
Still moored in your bay
My double mast furled
I am consumed by jealousy
Seeing you unfaithful
Spent in his arms
Half god, half man your lover
What a clod not to have known
You would succumb
Poised above your limbs
His blonde hair streaming
His young face lashed by the wind
Oh half god you have set me on
Flames hotter than hell
I would dive into the breakers
But you block my way
Enter uninvited my kahi moe
Wanting to discuss
Her alabaster thighs
Her very texture
How it feels to lie with her

LIX.
Oh half god have you stumbled
In just the selfsame way
To pierce my heart with tales of
Failed journeys and ceaseless wanderings
You need to heal, you say
Showing me a red patch
Above the pale white skin of your wrist
Gently I take your hand and apply my herbs
I may not appear so
But I am a Chinese doctor
And see that the world’s
Indifference has poisoned you
Left visible blemishes on your Byronic face
Where are you from half god
Sneakers out of fashion, high black socks
Utah, you say
Terror incognito must
Have sent you and I can’t resist
But fall into your arms
And dream the Mormon sleep

LX.
Halfgodhalfgodhalfgodhalfgod
I hear the sound of my voice screaming
At chopping waves
Spume flung against rock
Your one night stand
Wrecks me in a wake of
Rage and black despair
Why have you vanished
Leaving me with everything
I feel and am not
And want to be
Why am I slain by your beauty
Tossed by your innocence
Worn by your youthful charms
Neither waiting nor not waiting
Simply breathing by your shore

LXI.
Oh half god
How soon you disappeared
I miss our discussion
What was that trilogy of books you read
One Flew Over the Cookoo’s Nest
The Course of Miracles
And something hard to place
What did I recommend, Sidhartha
No you don’t know Buddah
Well it’s o.k.
Why do gods need Buddah
Old men need Buddah
Gods need rocks waves
Bursting lava
A pool fed from springs to bathe in
Old men need space
Gods want company
Love passion sun
And more rocks

LXII.
She belongs to us now
Do you realize that
We’ve shared her
Breasts and down below
Even talked about her
Kissed the same sand
Mandala on her thighs
But to you
She is fair innocence
To me night and all eve
The black dark cloud
Hanging over Haleakala
Eavesdropping
On the breaking waves
And I am bothered
Wanting to know
Why I can’t slow down
Long enough to hear

LXIII.
You my love, what was your deceit
To be a wife and mother
No, no that couldn’t be
Why did you want a man
Who had no need of you
To come close, you said
But that’s a myth
An unnatural thing
When you are strong
In your own space, you said
Then I can feel my love
So I listened to your lies
When what you wanted
Was to avoid
A connected reality
Grit rubbing into your oyster
The soul happening
And the pearl lifting from the sea

LXIV.
And me what did I want
More frustration
Death and dying
Grief I could not handle
A phoenix rising from the ashes
No I did not want coupledom
Not a Cheech and Chong of married life
Though I did love you
More, I thought than anyone
Could ever love you
But this was my conceit
How I flattered myself
When each time I fell head over heels
In love with your laughter
Slumbered in your perfumes
Swooned with fever
Waned with the ebb tide
And vanished
Like the evening sun

LXV.
Pitched past all forms of grief
Weighted by your rules
You come to La Perouse
And put me in prison
For not following them
When you walk here hiking by my side
You think only of black and white
But there is so much vibrant green
Cradled by fertile blues
And polychromatic lava
Ringing hollow
Like dishes rolling on a cart
And I am awake finally
After two hundred years
To voices speaking
To all in me

LXVI
My love is
A wild mountain goat
Traveling through trails of lava rock
Her black hair shining
Concealing her existence
Caught suddenly in my headlights
Separating her from the herd
How totally lost I made her feel
Scared to death in a spell
That I would make of her
What I will
And myself the hunter
How will I write
This page into my book
Shall I make us white
Embedded in black
Gray juxtaposing gray
And shall I say
All who enter here
Abandon hope and desire
Hearing only the noise
Of her black goat’s hoof
Striking lava as she joins the herd

LXVII
Gathered in a circle of gods
Sitting here above the water’s edge
Gazing at Kahoolave
I know my time is past
And I must swim now
In raging storms and small waves
To discover your treasure
Let your schools of parrot fish
Teach me to nibble quickly
Show me the ten thousand things
Happening
Weight me with faith and steadfastness
Allow my arms to embrace force
Stop looking for what is humane
Be a straw dog
Curious
Studying nature
Finding harmony

LXVIII
I am the traveler with no fixed plans
No interest in arriving
Simply following the dazzling light
The fly on my jeans
My arm and watch
And all of us
Forty feet above the water
On the edge of a cliff
Blinded by seas
And cloudless ambition
Above Kahoolave
While the stream of endless light
Flows home to the sea
How easy it is with
Only the world to enjoy

LXIX
My sweet love appearing now
As a wild mountain goat
Recalls me to my godlike youth
When my soul knew it had a rendezvous
And must keep a record
Walking the rolling hills and
Trees that lined the cemetery
Near my house
Where I often dreamed
Lying on my back
Watching squirrels
Racing up tree trunks
Stopping to gaze into endless summer air
Until a chilling wind
Ran through the gravestones
Spiking the sky
And ran through me
And I thought
Who would hear me if I cried out
What being would come
To me in my agony
My limbs trembling in fear

Until habit could right me

Then I would rush
And find myself
In the stream below the house
Where I searched
For my passion
My love
My deer in the woods
Living wild and terrified
Each day I brought her food
Carried it secretly in my pocket
Held it for her
Letting her contemplate
The distance between us
Moving forwards
Taking it gently from my hand
And in that moment we live still
Weaned from each other
As present is from past

LXX
We are the dreamy substance of ourselves
Living for moments of unkind relief
Thinking what we need is what we lack
And lacking that which makes us feel complete
We search for higher powers or distant shores
Our grief is just a candle to our loss
Revealing how bitter deep and ruthless
Are our thoughts
And gaining that which makes us feel complete
Are empty still
Blinded by sand blown against our face
Hunted pursued violent half-mad insane
Until the second comes to see our fate
We rise and find it’s all too late

LXXI
You love him still
Though he is daddy to the core
Hating your torment you insist
Wanting him to wait
You egg him on
And when he’s near you can’t think straight
Trying to please what can’t be had
Pursuer pursued
You think to enter bliss
Leavemethefuckalone is more your kiss
Knowing him, you know his bruising gait
You love him best when you do hate
If what I say is not so near the mark
Then let me die before I slander more

LXXII
Oh god why am I so possessed
When there are such
Beautiful things for me to see
Why am I attached to my ideas
Yet faithless to my vision
Sending out dark waves
Unlike the kiave in the wind
That has no view in mind
But makes use of whatever
Life brings its way

LXXIII
We made our walk
Her photographic eye contrasting colors
Arranging shots amidst the lava fields
Her voice sighing, why do I berate myself
For everything I do or don’t do
What purpose does it serve
To see my picayune failings
In so harsh a glare
Like a brown cloud blocking sunlight
Staining a flawless picture
When I was young we moved
From Munich to Hamburg
My father told me our new house
Had trees standing in the yard
Twice its size
Each night before we moved
I would pray that I would live
To see those trees before I died
Oh imminent death
Walking close by me on these cliffs
I hear the clicking of your camera’s lens
And watch you gather your presence
Safely behind

LXXIV
I am sitting on a black rock
Free to roam volcanic surfaces
Play with my restless heart
While your camera takes it all in
Once you were Berlin’s best new young baker
What coveted prize did you earn at school
Why did you never work at your craft
Why set the world aside and
Use those five thousand marks
To take you to India
What guru did you follow
To materialize now in my dream
Wearing a heavy backpack in La Perouse
Weighted with your camera
With your jells, your mirrors and your things
And will you be the woman I desire
Or will you break like a little girl

LXXV
I am strengthened
Watching your graceful postures
In place after place
Taking pictures of what I love
And still am loving
Until my soul unfolds
And I am earth circling in your orbit
One click and than another
Caught in a moment
Noticing jewels of sand upon your leg
While you get too much sun on your nose
And talk to me about hating your hat
And the wide elegant straw hats
You wore in Australia
Did they also press your head
Grip you in a vice
Worrying about something
You should see my mother, you say
When I was young I was frightened by death
I didn’t tell anyone but had
One dream that kept recurring
Of my family boarding a train from the back
Leaving me behind

LXXVI
I like when forms repeat themselves
Do you know each person wears certain colors
Out here I love the greens offset by black
But haven’t gotten them yet with my camera
I had a blue dress once
So rich it almost looked wet
When I looked down it felt I wasn’t there
I gave it away after one day
When I was seven I did not want to die
I didn’t want the movie to end
We are walking in a Heiau of lost time
In the field of lava that hasn’t
Disappeared with the ancient people
And I am spun outward
Whirling like a child
By grown-up’s arms extended
Placed down on earth
Reeling with a new vision

LXXVII
I am continuing my understanding of inquiry
And what are my obstacles
And of the seventeen obstacles
Am I free of any or am I guilty of all
Yes I have objective deficiency
A lack of specificity
There’s nothing I can’t claim
That’s not my own
Do I sink am I lazy indolent
Give me a break
I think I’ll tell a story
How I was a poet and forgot it
And now I am again fifty years older
What happened to me
Did I come awake
Walking on a lava trail on a cliff
In the middle of my life’s journey
Halfway through these poems
Swelling with joy
Falling on my face
Ripping my nose open
No, no I can’t have this intense pleasure
The world will smack me down
I lack art and scope
My work’s not spacious
I’m malcontented
Dissatisfied, not good enough
What did he say in response to my inquiry
You’re just a big baby in your playpen
La Perouse writing your songs
Haahaaahaahaahaaa
You didn’t talk about the obstacles at all
I felt my blood rise and down I went
And sank into my hating hell
For all night and hours on end
Until memories of you such pleasure brings
Well, flat out I’d scorn to change my place with kings

LXXVIII
I am Johannes Vermeer, a Dutch painter
The time of which I speak is about the 1660’s
I am a portrait painter, fashionable women mostly
One of my best was the girl, Greit
With the brown hat and pearl earring
She worked briefly in my household
A favor to a blind tilemaker
Whose eyes were sewn after his kiln exploded
It was her first position
How earnest she was
Studying the market stalls
For the best cuts
And studiously avoiding my wife’s jealousy
Carefully attending to any details
That might spur it
She was spellbound by my work
Showing her curiosity
In time I taught her how colors
Placed upon each other formed subtleties
After that she could not stop
Looking at things
I let her buy linseed oil at the apothecary’s
Or grind white lead
How clever she was to manage her affairs
To sleep above my studio
In the morning she arranged my brushes
Secretly not to disturb my wife
One day I asked her to sit
So that I might paint her as I first saw her
With her mouth slightly open
Asking her to wear my wife’s pearl
Would she be caught in my net
I considered my lust
And thought better of this way

And I the poet of today, Vermeer himself

Why didn’t I think like him
Where was my strength of inquiry
My love of truth
Not to be transfixed
By your radiant spell
Waiting until the first sight vanished
Refraining from burning our love
Before it had a chance to be

LXXIX
Lady I am Billy Bones, alive
To sing my black sea songs
Like fifteen dead men
On a dead man’s chest
And you greedy pirates
Waiting to hand me the black spot
Murder me for a bottle of rum
For my map of buried treasure
And here I am now
On a desolate island
Bereft in a bleak room
Lacking safe harbor
Aching longing
My gut knotted
Wanting release from misery
Remembering a life too soon ended
Love too quickly lost
Black rocks surround me
Gray oceans are my shroud
I have no wedding clothes
No empress to marry
But cast my lot on this
Barren and empty shore

LXXX
I will not think a year’s misery over
Before the year is out
My wife died in late December
Since then my soul is
Marred with a black stain
Made hazy like a wave
Echoing long after it has landed
Why didn’t you let me go, you said
Instead I wasted moments
Being selfish and scornful
Making you regret our life together
Why did I need to control you
So much sadness
So little time
As heaven melts
Runs like red tears from
Eyes shut in endless space

LXXXI
What is it like to be a father
Well it’s field day for my Uber ego
Spreading my mature wisdom
Knowing more and better than
And best
Shrouding it in years lived
And bungled
Like an old skirt
Hugging past your knees
To drape you in
But daughter
Mind not the old buzzard
Those few moments spent
In your eyes
Delight me beyond reason
Beyond passion
Beyond games of childhood
And always your legs are
Thrown about my neck
Our hands hold tightly to each other
And I walk taller than any man
In park or street

LXXXII
Back to me you write your poem
In double time and purple ink
Saying life’s aim is to please me
Reaching for goals that
Soar as high as mine
Knowing that when salty rivers run
I’m there and at 3 a.m. and you can
Crawl into my arms for comfort
An unconditional love
An uncut string
Feeling me now right beside you
A candle showing not the entire dark
Hallow all at once
But in time revealing things
A dead mother’s daughter
Wise beyond your years
Sending your hand into a timeless dimension
Knowing living or dying
Our souls comfort one another

LXXXIII
Can those lava rocks that cut me
Grind my soul
Can they ground its performance
As I trod steadily on the King’s Highway
To Kanaio and beyond
A true shepherd to my wild goats
And if I trip unacknowledged
On some old poet’s toes
Because his lines are too much
A part of me
Not even knowing how the songs come
I receive your thoughts
Keeping a record of them in the silence
Seeing your face so open
A form of inexhaustible delight

LXXXIV
Do I have a third love
What is happening to me
Our here in your wild embrace
In the fine rain
The hanging mist
In the flesh colored
Intimate skin of earth
Washed by ocean
There exists between us
True boundaries
Free to come and go
Among the centuries
Past memories
Perfume my nostrils
Sending the briny smell of you
Fragrant and distant to
Find my soul

LXXXV
We follow the trail to Kanaio
It’s pale today not that dark polarizing blue
You’ve brought the wrong filter
Feeling the wind take all your attention
Its loud noise whips around your ears
Blows against your face
Making it hard to see the flight of birds
Or recognize their form
Naah Naah
A baby goat calls out in the lava fields
Hoping to see the herd
We climb toward the sound
Until we see the small goat
Standing separate in the wind
I sit as you take your pictures
And sense the mystery of what’s arising
I don’t know to what page my book is turned
Or where it is to go
But like the wind you take all my attention

LXXXVI
Standing in the heiau of lost time
Overgrown with kiawe
Green with thorns and tall cactus
Beyond mountains of brown lava
And beyond the green slopes of Haleakala
Telling me how you learned
To speak my language
Traveling in Greece and India
Speaking about books
Sharing your student days with me
Loving the questions for themselves
How can Kafka be translated into English
What words quiver with apprehension
What subtleties are lost
Separated from their mother tongue
And we stand before this ancient village
Half its soul remaining
A perfect form falling from time
Worrying over dispirit cultures
When nature shows an exact spot
Of pale blue inside a wave
So light it’s not even pale blue

LXXXVII
The pain men put on women
How it hardens them
I thought I had missed all that
But this year has brought me
Once more to an issue of faith
I remember
Bringing my sister home form India
Babbling incoherent
My life an embarrassment
Incomprehensible to my years
What force stirred inside her
Blowing like a promiscuous wind
Tearing her away from any anchor
While I was left to persuade Russian police
Stop them from imprisoning her
Finally landing in Hamburg
I brought her home to my parents
Releasing me until I could trust again
And let the tears flow

LXXXVIII
I felt light headed
When I was talking about Australia
Thinking about a past happiness
My property where I planted
Jacarandas and African tulips
To bloom three years from now
Rooms built in my imagination
Additions added to a state of bliss
Yet away from him
I miss the big green leaves
That are my soul
Whose thickness is my being
I feel faint and dizzy
Was he a reflection
I took to be eternal
Losing myself when we made love
Or were shallow rivulets already
Running to a faithless sea

LXXXIX
What masquerades we play
While we wait for the next wave
Never seeing who we are
While the shark
In his sea cage
Flashes his macabre beauty
Awake to life
Devouring everything
In his field of vision
Come to the lava ball
This all souls night
Join the revelers
The dead ones
Seeking candy or beverages
Pick out a sea wall
Put up a for real sign
Terror incognito
This is La Perouse not Lahina

XC
We are making plans to camp again
She and I
And gently she holds
A mirror to my eyes
So I might see my self
My wild urges
Pacing to and fro
Wasting my power
Love’s fool
Lacking reason
Past redemption
This time it will be different
No more striking lava
Instead I will get it together
Leaving early
Providing time
Simple things like settling
For the night
And I will let my soul arrive
Informed by your precious sight

XCI
I am dying to feel that spark in me
When I was born
Covered now by
A film of sadness
Stopping my light from pouring forth
How close it is to the surface
Waiting for me to pull it aside
To begin stomping in earnest
To do my dance
And I come to La Perouse
Looking for whatever I left yesterday
Burnt stones and embers
Thoughts scattered by the wind
Lifting my eyes to watch
The silent sea

XCII
Frankei Angel Perez and
Ruben Keith Ortiz
The straps that tied your surfboards
Hang loosely now about your graves
Buried in rocks overlooking the sea
Your crosses adorned by shells
Razors, turtles, stone offerings
As you were offerings to the sea
Sacrifices in our struggle
To be spontaneous
Centers spinning outward
From a point in space
Fracturing and vulnerable
You came into the world
To find yourselves
Cut down short in La Perouse
And when you surfed that killing wave
Were your arms breaking or
Did you hold on with your heart
And leave with every drop of blood on fire
 XCIII
Today you are the blue of photographs
Without overcast and shadows
A dancing light upon the sea
And soft greens near shore
While far away
Life is suffocating
Barely breathing
Cities fall to dust
What the terror incognito doesn’t know
Is that we are terrorized already
And I came here to La Perouse
To tear this mask
Given me at birth
That I might see myself
And let my presence be
Not for a moment
But for however long
And to know why an hour
Resting on your translucent shore
Leaves my heart more still

XCIV
My heart dreams in La Perouse
Gray sands are my bed
And white stones, my pillow
My cool lips taste the night liquor
Running beneath lava fields
Flowing into fresh water ponds
Close to the sea
And I dream of
Sea eagles soaring
Skies streaked with stars
The way it was
When folks longed to go on pilgrimages
Wandering on a clear night
Walking in the wind
Stomping on the King’s highway
Wending their way toward Hanna town
 XCV
I am looking at the black cliffs
Jutting from the shore
Wondering if the canker in the fragrant rose
Was to make her petals smell more sweet
Or if death in life makes life more precious still
Or sadness lets us know the joyful heart
But when I see you
Lying next to him
Head to head
Exchanging tender thoughts
I cannot see how fear, hate, rage
And pain lead anywhere
Except to drag me into hell
Sickened by rape and murder
A senseless beast
Diving into the pounding surf
Knowing the bliss of endless pain

XCVI
Brothers Ruben and Frankie
Your sad lives make me weep
Standing over your youthful graves
I wonder why you were spared the full journey
Betrayal and bliss over before they began
What are we to make of your swift passage
What comfort do you leave us
Was it simply that in your deaths
We know you
And now you lie
Like boulders thrown into the sea
Forming peaceful patterns
Slightly off centered rows
Moving westward toward Kahoolave
Appearing through the bluest greens
Bodies in their deathbeds
Beneath the surface
And I know in my being
Life has provided you
A tomb befitting kings
 XCVII
Coming here each day
I came to take you for granted
The day I split my nose
Rushing in to see you
Was offensive
Pleasing only to myself
Allowing too broad a circumference
A rape oblivious to its prey
I must have deserved that slap in the face
Why would you
In your boundless wisdom
Put up with my disrespect
How many lessons
Must I learn in La Perouse
Before I see the rolling hills
The soft mounds in the lava fields
Palms touching palms
And know we are gathered here
Joyously and triumphantly at sea

XCVIII
Kiawe branch lying white on its side
Touching the water’s edge
What wind ripped you
Out of the ground
Clumps of earth
Still clinging to your roots
Your function was
Simply to grow and multiply
But in death you are beautified
By an artful mortician
Using his skill wisely
Preserving you for eternity
Catching our eye
With your sidewise branch
Dipping our hands in sea water
Summoning us to purify our souls
 XCVIX
Is it a dream
When your bring the baby to me
Holding him in my arms until
I notice he is slimy and misshapen
A foul smell matching his form
One eye swollen, oozing
Ready to pop
I want to get rid of him
When suddenly a pale green wave
Comes to me
Holding the baby tenderly, I look again
And he’s a Siamese twin
I watch him/them grow and separate
One is so beautiful it takes my breath away
Reaching full form
I am astonished when the smaller
Weaker of the two
Changes, mirroring the first
Becoming even more radiant
And the pale green wave of my vision
Becomes deep green bordered by black
Luminous, translucent,
Turning into small particles of light
Not even starlight
But light beyond all earthly gaze

C
So many rocks and boulders
Guard this cove
Loosely rolling with the tide
Tell me muse, what do you want of me
Why must I sing your songs
I am not the keeper of the faith
I do not feel it
Yet, when I look out toward Kahoolave
The wind blows through me
And I sense how little time
Is left for me on earth
Oh muse, reveal your quiet voice
That directs my doing
So I might untangle all the branches
And set the stars just so

CI
My young man, true son
Why do I let fall my hate
Against your innocence
And sense of loss
That so becomes you
Why do I bully you with math
Who cares if your sign is plus or minus
Or if your point is in the wrong place
There are so many points
In the wrong place today
Death stalks the world
Kahoolave a minefield
Of detonated bombs and strewn debris
And I pace frightened, yearning
For a new beginning, a holy place
You are so dear to me
Studying the beauty of your face
Brilliant and intelligent
I know your presence in the world
Is my second chance
To find my own true measure
And walk beneath the darkened sky

CII
Two military choppers flashing light
And spilling smoke over Kahoolave
Bursting into La Perouse
Ignorant of man’s history
Of the hundred thousand year war
Oh sad world with
Such deadening creatures in it
Blackening our sky
Screaming terror incognito
To desolate lava and rocks
I wonder for a second
If you will even be amongst us
After the dust has descended
And the brown fields eat us alive

CIII
Oh my sweet love, I have not abandoned you
Though it may appear
My time is spent in other pleasures
I have not forgotten your musty sea smell
Or how your pungent odor fills the morning air
Oh faithless muse awry
Trivializing my talent
Wanting to praise you
Longing to feel myself in you again
But I am tainted by hideous thoughts
Corrupted by jealous rage
Seeing you with your new companion
Lying on a blanket locked in his embrace
I burn at the sight of you
Until you fling cool spray at my feet
Opening my eyes
And where there were once two lovers
I see only the figure of Mary
Bathing by your shore
Playing with the child so dear to her
And she lifts him to her breast
Feeding him the honeyed milk

CIV
Brown lava rocks strewn in all directions
Rivers and deep gullies made by molten earth
Fields widening endlessly
Monotonous grays, dull soft reds
Jagged tips like obelisks point to the sky
Nothing moves in your creation
Nothing breathes or crawls under your rocks
No relief only pieces of buried motorcycles
Soda cans, broken glass
One small herd of goats lives in this space
The wind pushes my feet forward
The rocks sound like bells below me
Reality here is terror separating from itself
My grief surfaces, sobs pierce the air
Faces of the dead surround me
God barely stands in this place
Only a bleak eternity
A dry scream whispering
Who knows how it was meant to be

CV
In my fisherman’s place
Across from damaged Kahoolave
Two forms float below me
Breaking my meditation
Each equipped with snorkel and spear gun
An orange dinghy spreads out behind them
They dive and move on with empty nets
When they’re gone I throw out a piece of apple
Jacks, mullet, filefish, all bobbing
A feeding frenzy in the blue water
What did the ancient navigators
Think of orange plastic
Was it something to enrich their lives
Help them commemorate the deeds of men
Those seafaring chiefs
Journeying from the center of the Pacific
Hiro, Rata, Tangha, Tutapu, others
Two thousand years of voyaging
Ten million square miles of water
Islands fixed in their minds
Done in canoes
Carved with stone and bone
Held fast by coconut fibers
Seaworthy vessels sailing twelve hundred miles
From the Marquesas to the Cook Islands
Exposed to blistering winds
A single journey
Lasting twelve thousand miles
One hundred paddlers lost
Forty men remaining
Prognosticating weather by
Halos of the moon
And the stars within the halos
A journey inside
Knowing the way
Without knowing you know
A hole opening in the sky
Enthralled by the moon
And the throbbing of the blood

CVI
Dear Jean Francois hoping this letter reaches you
In some nexus where our lives have crossed
I think of that morning long ago
When dark gray choppy waves
Battered the shore
Forcing you to turn away from the Kipahulu coast
Stopping their canoes from greeting you
Paddlers unable to reach your ship
Swamped in your wake
Spilling their hogs
The men of the island curious to know your purpose
The women ready to give soft welcome
To your sailors
Out of joy for a stranger
Passion for the journey
To celebrate victory in navigating the unknown
And your two ships, La Boussole and L’Astrolabe,
Struggle through the night
Try to find shelter against the trades
Leave the lush Hanna side and sail toward Kanaio
What you called, a dismal coast
Finally making anchorage in the squalls and soft sand
You spend your morning hours
Learning that these were not the same islanders
Who murdered your hero Captain Cook
But a mild people
Coming as you did from an Age of Enlightenment
You were the one sole navigator
Bringing with you men of science
Ardent about weather and water
Under a mandate from Louis and Marie
Not to kill unless forced
Instead carrying organs, combs, hatchets
Scissors, one million assorted pins
Nine thousand fish hooks
Not thinking of these people
As people to be conquered
You put up no flag
In all you spent less than forty eight hours
Before sailing away
Never to return to these Hawaiian Islands
But on to Japan to a straight off Hokkaido
Then somewhere between New Zealand and Somoa
You disappeared

CVII
Dear Jean Francois what was your fate
Were you killed by a mob
Shipwrecked by storms
Was there in your moment of wonder
Someone to hear your cries
Clasp you to their chest
Did you suffocate
Feel unbearable bliss
Rock beside forms of the dead
In a single grave without dominion
Until the world hauled you up
A hundred years later
Lead ballasts and copper spikes
Saying they belonged to La Boussole and L’Astrolobe
Outside an island called Tikopia in the Santa Cruz
And now it is time
To light my torches for the long night
For I must tell a tale
For you, Louie and Marie
Repair a mast
Mend a sail
In the way it might have been
In the distant past
Had your returned

CVIII
Damn, you say I have a hand full of women
And I laugh that I have no one
Your wide mouth smiles at me
And I am swirling in confusion
Grinning at my empty existence
I shout, Jean-Francoise Galoup
Tell me about your sex life
How does it feel alone in your cabin
Without anyone, do you have yourself
Do you cry out like I do
Wait to see what mist or rain
Will drench you
Throw you into an abyss
Leave you thwarted
Heart sinking
Unable to escape a mean spirited truth

CIX
I take the path to the old tearoom
Wanting shelter from the rain
Set my pack down beneath the giant kiave
White coral stones fill its branches
Rest on the ground as alters
And below me are two fisherman
Waiting for hoipia and aluha to strike their lines
Two large setter dogs sit in their truck
Camp food, nets, chair and an empty ice chest
The rain stays
Not a very good time to set bait
One of them slides a little in the surf
And behind us there are red broken walls of time
Ancient villages that have crumbled
Place after place vanished
As real time moves sluggishly
Refusing to catch fish

CX
Last night we lay together for the first time in La Perouse
How cautious you are even in your pillow talk
Feeling unprotected, unable to sleep
Worrying, creating fantasies
Dengue mosquitoes lurking in the lava pools
Waiting for a chance to kill you
Drunken fisherman with empty beer cans
Waiting to rape you
While I, your penless perverted poet
See only your statuesque beauty
Listen to you talk about how you want to get fucked
Yet how satisfied you were by your last lover
Who never fucked you
But made love to you with a sweetness
And later I told you I had a premonition
That I might not be here for much longer
Wondering about that thought
Was I alive
Like the nerve endings of a sliced eel
And then you woke at three a.m. to falling rain
To things moving, clouds, moon, stars, mosquitoes
And me too quiet by your side
Imagining yourself dragging out a dead man
We had the best laugh of the night
But not our last in La Perouse

CXI
I am voyaging now
Without contact
Not indifferent
Darkness penetrates my essence
Light shimmers in my soul
And I am gliding once more
Gliding with red tailed tropic birds
Drawn to cooler lands
What land is this
What waves and currents move me
Look, the bursting fountains
Look, the mountains rising to the sky
Hold my canoe
Hold it steady
The sacred sennit
Lace it in and out
Tighten it to hold
Let it hold, let it hold
Ku and Hina
Let my spirit fly ahead
Onward to a fresher land

CXII
The boulder hangs by the sea
And the pool beneath it
Clouds cancel the light
He leaves Friday, she says
I want to feel what it is like here
Without his presence
Without running into him or his girlfriend
Now poised on a lava rock like a heron
With her pig tail and blonde braid
Her camera seeing what there is to see
Choosing her space carefully
Is there never anything you haven’t done
I would like to go to Tahiti, she says
Then her dream shatters, cracks
When something ends up not happening
I want it to be over with already
I was brought up to feel it isn’t right
Not to be in a relationship
Never to feel that golden love again

CXIII
I see you now in every rock and lava field
In the herd’s departure
The bird lifting into flight
In the shape of your new love
In my daily prayers
Nothing my sweet boy is ever the same
When you are gone
There will be nothing new to say
Yet my eternal love is love anew
And when she stops me at the dance
And wants to talk to me
I hate her more than tongue can speak
Oblivious to my hurt
Why do I care if we are comfortable
Wanting me to make her feel better
I rage against the blackness of her eyes
Her small white breasts
Her mouth a twitter
Her faint heart’s history
Until I get my rest

CXIV
When will I possess the mana of a God
My spirit followed by the hungry seas
Swallowed by half gods
Eaten by sickness
More death in life than life alive
I tire of these cries and weeping
Forsaken by my muse
I climb weary into my eyrie
My space above the sea
Until my gaze meets yours
Impervious to eternal life
How I drink your freshness
Incomparable to any words I write
And when I look out on the wide world
At the feathered gods above Kahoolave
My animal passions
My flock of reasons
Are naught to the chopping of the breaks
And the endless crashing of your waves

CXV
What is this wind screaming inside me
Bullying me
Like hurricane waves
Crying inside me
Stay little stay small
Keep it inside
Do not reach inside for the smallness
Bind it to the womb
Tie it to the womb
Why are the gods yelling
In the middle of the night
In the depth of the night
Nightmare screams
Terrified sounds
Do not emerge from the beach
Stay small like the egg on shore
Do not walk into the sea like the turtle
You will frighten the others
Do not swim in the sea like the turtle
They will grow jealous
If you expand like the sea’s wall
You are a threat
Accommodate to her tyranny
Stay little stay small
Keep it inside

CXVI
Plug your ears
Stop them
Close them
Do not listen to the
Black sea songs
Lash yourself to the mast
Do not suffocate in the waves
Breathe deeply
Feel your salt-stung wounds
The storm itself
The clouds drifting away in the storm
And the immense beauty of the sun flashing

CXVII
How does the story end
You say, not with a bang but a whisper
I say, quieter than a church mouse
You say, quieter than that
I say, if I never came here
Would it make a difference
You say, it would to us women
I say, if the sea remains quietly the sea
All will be well
And I would have an upbeat ending
But you are filled with turbulence and moods
And quiet is just one part of you
The part I lack
Do I find that part
Is that the ending
And what about the others
Wife, daughter, women I have loved
Do they wait for me
To find them destinies and deaths
 CXVIII
I am just a signpost
Like a swarming of beasts
A flight of terns
Driftwood on your surface
While you, my turbulent sea
Have patterns woven into time
Begun with time’s origins
Guiding humankind for years
And like other sailors
I must learn strategies
For exploring your reefs
For navigating long distances
If I try to conquer you
I will miss the journey
Loose those spaces
Those moments of joy
When I hear you clearer than life itself
And life is neither bow nor beam nor destination
But a boundless horizon
Stretched across a diamond dome
Rising like stars from fixed points
As the night slides across the sky

CXIX
My sweet daughter, walking into La Perouse
We come full blast into an odor on the trail
I always love the smell of horse poop
It smells yummy
Reminds me of horseback riding
I loved riding when I was young
Oh my god, look in there
A dead puffer fish with no teeth
That’s nasty, then looking at the sea you say
Did you ever notice how a wave rides in on itself
Curls over, sort of glides, then breaks
I think the water from the shore flows back
And makes peaks in the waves
A sign marks the start of the King’s highway
I read her the salient part
Two miles to Kanaio beach
Well I’m not walking to Kanaio
Why do you think I’m so spoiled, you ask
Well, I say, before your mom died
She gave you everything you wanted
Do you think that was wrong
In some ways, but she loved you a lot
Why don’t we go back now, you say
Let’s walk a little more, I say
To where, you say
To the next ridge, I answer
What do you think of three, you say
Three what, I say
I think a family of three is better than two
With two there is always a fight for attention
When my brother was born
I wasn’t old enough to appreciate him
But when we moved upstate
I wanted you and mom to have a baby
I wanted to be a mother
Have a baby of my own to take care of
Three’s an ideal number
Very, very perfect
Two is boring
Why don’t we eat the crackers
I know a better place, let’s go on, I say
Where, you say
To the next ridge, I answer

CXX
So we walk to the next ridge
Crunching lava stones beneath our feet
I love the tinkling sound, you say
Can’t we eat here
Don’t you want to eat on a swing, I say
Not true, you say
Yes, a gigantic swing and
We can sit there and eat our crackers
I’m tired, you say
Lift your legs, I say
I like to walk on the walls
Not the sides, you say
You mean the path, I say, why so
Because it’s funner and more interesting
And you have to balance on it
And it’s not where everyone else walks
You know, if you had a girlfriend now
It would be o.k. with me
It wouldn’t feel like it did with her
That you didn’t love me as much
That the love that was for me, went to her
And as long as she wasn’t weird
Weird looking or weird acting, I say
Well she was weird sometimes
I let that slide, who wouldn’t be weird
What if I went with your English teacher
No, she has something going on with her legs
So weird is an appearance
Not exactly, I’m tired, you say
Why don’t we go on, I say
Where are we going
To the next ridge, I answer
Can you imagine the effort it took
Two hundred years ago to build this trail
They didn’t have the distractions
Planes being hijacked, what to wear to school tomorrow
Worrying if it will be safe to go to college on the mainland
Or if my father will still be alive three years from now
And we come to the next ridge
To a beach below us
See thick ropes suspended from a tree
And between the ropes an enormous log
End to end bigger than two people
Swinging in the breeze

CXXI
Sitting on the log
Holding a cracker
This cheese spreads like butter, you say
A camouflaged truck parked near us
A local man, dark hair, rough beard
Camping with three teenagers
Telling the two boys with spear guns
Not to go far out, worry him
I ask him how he got the truck in here
Drive it through the lava fields, he says
The road, kinda boss
We talk, I ask him
How they built the King’s highway
Brought in rock from the shore
The whole village haul it all in, about sixty of them
Some of the men fished, others hauled rock
O.k. if we sit here, I say
He laughs, beach is for anyone
He points above me
There was a branch that hung from there
Before they cut it up for bonfire
You could climb it and see the fish
They swim in, then catch them in my net
Have them for dinner with some steak
Got my hammock, got my mosquito net
Give it a test
Don’t want to fall down at one in the morning
Rude awakening
He goes back to testing his hammock
We sit and spread cheese on another cracker
This time I hold, you spread
We are thinking the same thoughts
If you die, you say
I know a part of you is in La Perouse
I’m not thinking so much about me afterwards
But how it will happen
If you die, I know you won’t do all that chemotherapy
Radiation, you won’t let yourself be sick like mom
We will be a part of it
Know what’s going on
Your right it won’t be bad, I say
And you can always find me
I’ll be here

CXXII
It’s time to leave
We get up and walk over to the man
He’s spreading a tarp across the top of his truck
For his daughter to sleep under
Going back now, I say
You walk from La Perouse, he says
Yes, I say
Long walk, he says
You want to smoke
No, catch some fish, I say
Walking back you ask me
What did he mean by that
Did I want some weed, I suppose
Maybe he was being friendly
Nasty, you say
Yes, I say
I would be scared if you did it, you say
Yeah, I would be scared if you did too, I say
Why do they want to give that
To sick people, you say
To kill the pain, I think
Did mom do that
I found a joint in her desk
Must have been given to her
By someone who came to the house
Nasty, you say
She was in a lot of pain
I don’t think she smoked any of it
She didn’t like pot
Well, I’m happy
We walked all the way, you say
We’re walking faster now that
The wind’s behind us, I say
Do you know we hiked seven miles
Woah, you say
You know the next ridge thing
I learned something
Instead of thinking of Kanaio beach
It’s making smaller goals for yourself
It’s easier
Just the next ridge

CXXIII
And now the grief of
Unexpressed thoughts
Is more than I can bear
Gestures never made
Words buried in silence
My heart has fashioned a stone
To wear around my throat
What use are my teeth if
They get in the way of my tongue
I will knock them out
Show my gums to the world
So it will know the unbearable pain
Of living without you
The empty bed reminds me of you
The pillow we talked on
The line you last wrote
The last word you told me
That morning that I lifted you
Into the rocking chair
And you saw the dawn
In a voice so still
I barely heard you
Looking at who knows what
You said, it’s beautiful

CXXIV
I am suffering the stone road
Where I drive my jeep
Branches passing close overhead
Sliding over torn jagged boulders
Climbing up high rocks that
Drop and fall away
Deep down over the edge
Where I have spun my wheels
Until by some miracle
My four wheels engage
And I am awake
To the clear smell of rain
The road less obstructed
And a few yards away
A place for me
To camp the night

CXXV
I am the warrior in La Perouse
Living in my mountain neck
Impregnable to plunder
Sailing west on one of my sea voyages
I was captivated by the
Beautiful Hina, wife of Hakalanileo,
In my captain’s mind
What I saw, I had to possess
And so I stole you from your home
So skillful was I
That no one knew
For the longest time
Where you were
Your husband was grief stricken
Destitute for years
The seas rolled on
Until your sons Kana and Kalohe
Grew up and searched for their mother
They were cunning
Skillful in their trickery
The youngest, Kana
Knowing the sorcerer’s art
Used spells and incantations
To discover your whereabouts
To rescue you from captivity
Scorning a canoe
Kana strode the ocean’s depth
Lengthening himself to the height of the sea
In the treachery that followed
He destroyed my fortress home
And I escaped down wet sea walls
Looking back I see
The slackening flames
Burning in the dusk
Fading into distant time
Arriving are the dark clouds
Arriving are the wild winds
Whirlwinds spun over the earth
Swirling down ravines and lava tubes
Oh Hina, I am furious to have my revenge
On you and your sons

CXXVI
What howling storm prompts me
Blows me with desire
What wind drives me
To walk the cliffs
Of running rain
Stalking the land
With murder in my heart
Have you my faithless whore
My sometimes wife
Drenched me in a fever
Worse than death
Set me on edge with
Thoughts brighter than my soul
So that now I exist
In a world of creatures
Living for terror
Craving satisfaction
Wanting to cram you
In a blowhole
Drown you
In sea wine
And watch hope drain slowly
From your face
In the same way mine did
While you plead silently
Your hands tremble
And I rise
Like a raptor
Rip out your eyes
And leave the remains
The pieces of you
For gulls to peck at

CXXVII
I am the wave uprooted from the sea
Leaving me like a dazed animal
To find my lair
Cultivate my hatred
Conjure a vision
Place my mouth over the crown of your head
Like an old kahuna breathe in your soul
As I would breathe
The fragrance of a petal
Until one day by stealth I see you
And your sons passing inside lava walls
Taking the dark passage home
I fill the space with pitch
Make it dense
Slash holes in the rock for rain
And blood to pour through
Cover myself with a stone door
And wait for you to pass by
Lust pounds in my throat
I cry but there are no answers
I crave to gorge my ancestral food
To eat the blood fruits
You draw close
Your footsteps landing without an echo
When you reach the hidden passage
I cry out, whowhowhowhowho
Slice the throats of Kana and Kalohe
Let their blood flow
Streak my body
Before I turn to you and
Feel the wind rushing past
Let you plead your innocence
Then I grunt like a wild boar
Thrust into you
Oh Hina, the fire burns
The sacred flames leap out before me
I rip your eyeballs one by one
One blue one gray
The steaming fire flows from me
Consumed by earth, melting into a wasteland
I feel a dry season scorching the land
As I drag your body from its dark hole

CXXVIII
Today are the rites of the Luakini temple
And I have come to make a sacred offering
To feel death and rebirth
Hear the drums echo
A swirling storm lashes around me
A rage holds me
I look at your body
Lying at my feet
With my knife inside you
I bend over
Make streaks in your blood
Your odor steams in my nostrils
Your eyes moisten my throat
My lips taste your sweet food
And the gods in the sky
Scream down at me
Not to eat in haste

CXXIX
Oh Hina though it appears so
I did not premeditate your death
But neither was it an accident
I do not remember the details
I may have felt you
As a god holding my structure
A ritual without conscious knowing
Maybe I sought to flatter you
Manipulate you into a defenseless posture
But I sense now
Dragging your body behind me
Wanting to leave your bones
In the house of the dead
That what I have done will be maligned
In stories and chants
Lost will be the old ways
Shrill winds existing only
As primordial memories
People’s lives a shadow
Along the sea
Our lands wounded
And your death mistaken
By the whole world

CXXX
The rain leaves no tears upon the earth
It pours down letting the petals remain dry
I try to burn your body
But it will not burn
I try to take it to another place
But it will not burn there either
Everywhere I drag it
It is the same
I creep by cliffs and rocks
My burden is heavy, full blown
I put your blue eye in my mouth
My tongue dries in my throat
Scorched, parched
Tribunals of half gods judge me
Commit me to constant unrest
To passions devoid of pleasure
Rape without sweetness
Murder without stillness
In my dream
I am surrounded
By a dark shadowy tribe
My openness rewarded
By blood on my soul
Burned by the sun
Fainting on lava
Waking up knowing
The loss of innocence
The soul without lightness
La Perouse you are bubbling up
Bubbling away
I miss you
I miss you as you once were
When salt still bathed
The forms of my ancestors
And I fished with my pearl fishhooks
Before I felt your designs
Before my life was snuffed out
And my race came to its end

CXXXI
Oh goddess of the half world
How do you guide my soul
Now that I am burned to ashes
Abandoned on your shoals
Never to see a porpoise
Or flight of tern again
Bereft of destination
Let me come before your council
Work it out with Ku and the others
For I am
Like a shimmer on the water
I refract no light
Not now
Nor ever

CXXXII
The wind and your rough waves
Have brought me to this new island
Surrounded by sea turtles
Not knowing how I arrived here
Vague memories haunt me and
Though my past is blank
I swear from here on in
I will take nothing for granted
Live my life for what it is
On this land of flowing lava
I command you to build me a city
Rising from the earth
Like no city before me
And I will rule here until I die
In a temple of desecration
Let my burial home
Be a bruised earth
Let malignancy suffuse me
Entomb my children with me
For I am beyond conversion
And there is no waking from this dream
Nothing in the still air
But the puffer’s death
And the waves inevitable foam
 CXXXIII
I wish my grief to end
To find a wave
In that dark rough sea
That finally breaks on shore
For I have been private too long
Living with silence
I remember walking high cliffs together
Hiking from promontory to promontory
Wild birds lifting from the grass
So vivid is my memory
That I can almost touch you
Feel the life that springs up overnight
With shouts of joy
And thoughts of you
That have the shape to please
And I must sing about the sea
What course to sail
And what’s to be

CXXXIV
Oh faithless man romanticize the past
Though we have been together for so long
The memory of our first contact still haunts me
How my belief about the world
Has changed since then
How naive I was
I thought you came in your canoe
From the place of the dead
Looking for your wayward children
How I avoided you
Found your presence frightening
Seeing your steel ax offerings
As kapu, trying to get rid of those
You had left on former voyages
So you might leave me alone
Thinking your children elsewhere
I knew nothing of your thoughts
Only your hunger for pearls and things
You are seduced by the image of yourself
A god of noble birth
Shaping me into a dream of conquest
Snaring me in your net
Scorning the reality of my world

CXXXV
Yet we remain together without embracing
Not that every stitch of it was bad
We’ve had our ceremonies
Times of peacefulness
But what is left for our children
What world will they have to live in
I see your motive is greed
That’s mostly true
You belong to a category
Of artist come to paint our pictures
Things you think you hold dear
The very face of me
But inside you are weary of my kiss
Cynical with power
Judging what you see
Naming it my ignorance
My violence
My thievery
My fondness for human flesh
And human sacrifice
For you have simply come to trade
And to have me submit
And when you see me clearly
You feel threatened
You burn and massacre in retribution
Cut my arms and shoulders to the bone
Appearing to be the conqueror
You are the victim of lost hope
And you have taken what I offered
Without second thoughts
My femaleness, my femininity
Taken me hostage
Watch me cut my head with shark’s teeth
Taken my act to be a farce
And in return you gave me goods
Iron for a free market
That I turned against you
Used for daggers to cut you down
Let you die
Litter on the beach at Kealakekua
Mainly a tale of blindness
No difference now
 CXXXVI
Were you not as Melville saw you
A junta of ignorant restless haoles
Self ordained ministers of civilization
Secretly wanting to keep us locals
As we were
What else would you have to sell
This was your conflict
Until we took your ways
Acted more like you than you yourselves
Our last rebellious king
King Kauikeaouli
Losing his sovereign powers
To Kaahumanu, his foster mother
And the various pious alii
Who ruled in haole fashion
Cutting down the old regime
Claiming royal lands and privileges
I watched as your pawns
Stripped him of his rule
Put down his revolts
Calling them a commotion
A return to darkness
He and his young birdfeathers
Fighting for the ritual of the Makahiki
Like Lono he was defeated
Like Lono he was banished
Loosing his spirit
In a moment of weakness
His desire was to fertilize our land
To keep alive the dangerous games
The long run and its meanings
Celebrating the earth
Instead they took away his lands
Won by his father, Kamehameha
Abbreviated his wicked feast
Sent him to Lahaina to live in exile
Separated from his support
He had no passion for the storm
A sovereign who had lost his presence
Civilized into a sober man
Our people transformed
Our kingship dead
Our land alien to things Hawaiian
 CXXXVII
Well that is sorrow and story
Our land torn from its rituals
A reality still unfolding
A mourning for the death of kings
Here in La Perouse the old life still exists
Ancestral voices still speaking
The ancient language
The sacred sports still in fashion
The beginning of the wet season
The rising of the Pleiades
Thunder increasing
Black clouds gathering
Lono returning in the form of rain
Starting his pilgrimage around the land
The priest making his prophecy
Saying this year will be good
If there is unity between heaven and earth
Between the bird’s plumage and the fern
And in the day’s progress Lonomakua
Is born, grows and becomes a man
He eats the coconut
Wears the loincloth
Moves about the land
The mob follows him
The king accompanies eating sacrifices
First fruit belongs to the king
Then he leaves the field
To escape danger
Hide from our wrath
As we revel in our orgies
Feel our bodies curve round each other
In god’s fecundating work
We are purified by laughter
By the sun waking
The seed in the ground
The long stem breaking forth
By abandoning ourselves
To love and fellowship
We destroy the old order
And wait for the fruit of the gods
To fall out of the sky

CXXXVIII
Walking the kings highway
Knowing the names of ancestors
The six hundred years and
Twenty four generations
Shaping the land
Knowing the white finned shark
The koa’e bird taking flight
The aku’s leap
The kapu of chiefs
The rights of all things
Knowing the names of all things
Flying and running
I have my sovereignty
And walk with confidence
Ride my canoe through crashing waves
Spray and surf
Stand before those who
Bar my entrance to the land
Dodge their envious spears
Catch them
Throw them back as a true warrior
Entering the home of my people
Bathing in the salt water
Knowing freedom
Calling this land my own

CXXXIX
Now that the Makahiki is over
Our sociability at a high
It’s time for work and sacrifice
And I am depending on the priest
To tell me whether to restore
The Luakini temple or build a new one
In former times construction
Involved thousands of workers
Feeding and organization
Measuring influence and ability
Showing support for the king
Stones tower and temple
Were the ways to lead men
To serve gods and consecrate the feast

CXL
I have unified the land
And the people of the land
And now is the time to celebrate
The transformation rites
The priests have decided that this year
We will build a new temple
The undertaking is enormous
And I must act wisely
Not to provoke the people
By an unjust act
To take my life
The intricacies of the temple
Will test all my skills
Let me build the heiau of female desires
The sanctum sanctorum, the pyramid
The drum house, the sacrificial altar
Build the image of the gods
The god of the trees, the god of
Wide expanse, supreme one
Knees bent, bodies massive
Ready to go to war or
Rule in peace
Let me weave the wicker image
Of the feather gods
Make the eyes of the sighted gods
The gods of the stars
Gifted with vision and intelligence
Knowing the profound depth of the universe
As man’s eyes grasp the divine
Man and god transformed
I am the fisherman of men
The conqueror at the edges
Of darkness who
Must bind this land together
Make the supreme sacrifice
Make the human sacrifice
Be the shark devouring all
Be all forms of our race
The incarnation of the gods and
Let myself be guided by the priests
In the long vigil of eight nights, marking
The rights of passage in the Luakini temple

CXLI
The eight rights of passage
A severe test of my mana
My sacrificial strength
Inaugurating my divinity
I must separate from the ordinary world
Purify myself
Move toward
Existence itself
Voyaging in the boundless dimensions
As a true man and the god king
I have the divine right
The expressed permission
The ultimate latitude
To scoop out and
Eat the eyes of victims
Devour the eyes of fish or men
Offering them to the Ku goods
I assuage our guilt
Represent all warlike forms
All conquering
I am the primordial beast
Seen walking in the land
Naked, with dangling penis
Violating the rules of our tribe
My hand streaked with black
A black ring around my eye
Eating and sleeping with women
Impulsively
Without thought
The crowd sitting in row
Chanting
Uttering prayer
While I prowl indiscriminately
Piercing the eyes of the spectators
I am divinity without restraint
The transformation of the gods
Who takes the first fruits
Who must be appeased
If the land is to be free

CXLII
How do we shape reality
What role do we ascribe
To the play of the senses
In the rights of the Luakini temple
Our openings become
Diamond facets
Of opposite and
Complimentary light
The silence of death
The noise of life
The erect phallus
And supine vulva
Sin and purification
These are the ways
We transform
All aspects of music
Forms of speech
Degrees of color
The decorative flowers and ferns
The delightful odor of the hala
The perfuming world
Of essences
Imaginary gardens
Croaking with real toads
We worship through our senses
Transforming ourselves
From individual desires
To a tribal consciousness
And I must conquer all
Bind the ambition
That drives us apart
Play my role
In a ritual meant to purify
Tame my arrogant passions
My murderous hatred
My blind desires
Transform my wild force
Into the image of Kahoali’i
The violent god
That becomes the ideal
The invincible cloak
Guarding the world
Divinity itself

CXLIII
It begins with the cutting
Of the strong wood
The tree we call the Haku’ohi’a
The red tree entwined by vines
Alive with crimson and scarlet flowers
Attracting the red birds
Standing in the mountains
Like the furious warrior
The divine tree cut down by adzes
Fashioned into the image of our god
Kahali’i and through him Ku
The tree transforming into the god
Coming in contact with our life
Our rites and rituals
Now in our temple
Even as a log he is closer to us
Encouraging us to bloody battles
Enemies we must conquer
To solidify us
Bring us together in this impure world
Penetrating the land
Corpses strewn about my feet
A cruel and bloody warrior
Whom men shrink from
Who does this land belong to
Says the high priest
And we answer
To Ku belongs the high sacrifice
To Kahoali’i and through him to Ku
We carve the image of a god
He must be transformed
A fearful night spent
While death roams the land
There is no turning left or right
An oppressive silence
No sound of burning fire
No pig squealing
No barking dog
Everyone holds his breath
For fear of being dragged from his house
To become the sacrifice
To be transformed

CXLIV
To transform the god
I must tame him
As I must tame myself
His mana flows through to me
So I may defeat my foes
The priest makes an offering
To let me live
Continue my conquest of the land
The drums roll
Ku is evoked
All in rebellion are cursed
And I must enter
The dark side of the mountain
The dark layer of the sea
The rites are nearly concluded
The great sacrifice
Separated now from the human world
Is laid upon the alter
An incision made in his penis
Before I decapitate him
Pluck out his eyes
The only ones remaining now
Are the priests
But even they have retired into the shadows
I am left in absolute silence
Looking at the real faces of the gods
Hearing the sounds of their truth
As the words pass through me
So that I may speak
With a clear authority
For our lives are based on these words
Evoking a transcendental reality
Made lucid through me
I am the divine king
Aware that our entire society
Depends on my alignment with the gods
Knowing that I may go forward
Meet the world as it is
That my actions consecrate this temple
And this temple is my rock

CXLV
What priests are left today
To exorcise our ills
I called a psychic, you say
Made an appointment that
I’m wondering about now
It’s very dangerous, I think
What they tell you about people
Big meanings they have in your life
One told me once that I would
Color photos professionally
I think it’s a way for me
Not to trust my own experience
And then you add, I’m scared of heights
Would you like to walk the cliffs, I say
We could go slowly, I have bad shoes
When I look down, you say
I feel the fall
Imagine the possibility
I wonder where this comes from
Climbing along the heads of the cliff
Somewhere we take a wrong path
We’re in the thick of it, you say
How is it for your shoes
Fine, I say
Coming to a halt, you say
Now we have three pathways
Take the white one, I say
We come out at the fishing spot
My mountain neck
Crabs scuttling away on the cliffs below us
I would like to do a shot here, you say
Of fish in clear water
It’s very deep here
You know, my teenage years
I had a value about myself
A sense of rightness in what I did
I hadn’t engaged in the external world
I hadn’t had a relationship in my life
Didn’t know anything about men or women
The concept of should or shouldn’t
Only the feeling I had a calling
Was on the right path
No doubts, just accepting how life fits

CXLVI
Broken bottles, glass, litter of all kinds
How they trash this spot, you say
It’s a practicality for them
Just fishing
Sitting on the edge of the cliff
Watching a school of jacks
You ask if the darkness
In the water below
Is the shadow of the cliff
Look so many yellow fish, you say
It’s amazing to see how they float
And I wonder how would it appear
If we could see the truth
The way it really is
Without the dullness of vision
With the god’s grace
With all the radiance
Awakening to fish floating
In streams of sliding light
Awakening in a golden birth
I’m morphing, you say
I feel that my life is morphing
I’m in this shapeless state
A little bit ugly or gory
In India on m,g, road
There was a deformed hag
Sitting by the side of the road
Called elephant women
Her face was hanging down
Your hands press against
The sides of your face to show me
The right pressing up
The left, down
I watch you thinking about who you are
The sunlight hiding for a moment
The water getting darker
It’s so clear, you say
It’s perfect

CXLVII
My soul attracted to yours and yours to mine
I would have fallen in love without reflection
Taken by your gray green eyes
Never looking beneath the surface
Nor letting love go where it please
Now I am content for what we have
Not hurting though we might with ease
But gently making most of time
Moment to moment arising
A jack darting beneath a coral reef
A porpoise breaking from the sea
God plays with his vast ocean
Without concern for human agony
Or human kind to act as bait

CXLVIII
Tonight is the night of the Makahini
The earth rolling east in its inevitable path
Moving precisely between sun and Pleiades
My small son sleeps in a Japanese restaurant
Tired by a seven mile hike and a Harry Potter movie
Waiting to be taken home
I see you bent over tide pools
Filling your bottle with hermit crabs and seaweed
Your loving fingers poking delicately
Seeing the life within each shell
Check out this one, pops
Excited, showing me a tiny sized crab
With a shell to big for it’s body
A Chinese farmer under a coolie hat
Protecting himself from the hot sun
We sit on tide rocks watching its movements
Barely perceptible in the shoals
Oh my god, look at all those
Look at how many I can get from here
Do you think it’s hard for the small ones to walk
Why, I say
Cause they’re so small and have such tiny legs
Now I see you lifting a hermit crab
Its cone shaped shell stripped in reds and oranges
Sweet, she picked this huge shell
Why, I ask
To have babies, you say

CXLIX
I wonder how it feels
To be the youngest and smallest
In a family of achievers
Each one larger than life
To walk on the king’s highway
Listening to me tell you
Stories of human sacrifice
Rites of the Luakini
How it was in Khamahamaha’s time
And in his son’s Kauikea ouli
Telling you to be strong
That new ways need new strengths
You ask me why
Kauikeaouli let himself be robbed of his lands
Lost his courage
His ability to stand for his rights
To fight for his people
Transformed from a great warrior
To a pious Christian
It’s hard for someone twelve
To recognize a world order passing
A time so different from his father’s
Different as night and day
Knowing that what you learned growing up
Will make sense only in a small way
At now at twelve, you need to set aside childhood
Take on an academic gown
A competitive life in subjects and sports
No one has prepared you
Not to fear mistakes
Only yesterday you glided down half pipes
Dreaming of skateboards
Now you must hold tight
Feel the gravity of science
Learn for a new time
Your world already sprung tight
Consumed by terrors
Deep chasms of hate
Walking now, you drop your
Water bottle for the forth time
Why, I ask you
I’m afraid, you say

CL
Eating hummus and crackers on Kanaio beach
Wondering why we didn’t bring an apple
We discuss the vicissitudes of old age
You start of with a deceptive question
What does it feel like to be thirty
I talk easily about the past
When it was cool not to trust anyone over thirty
It’s a walk in the park
And what about forty
Oh yes, the mid life crises
There’s still a wide margin of safety here
And fifty, what’s that about
Suddenly I’m trapped in death and illness
And what of sixty
How can I tell you what it’s like
To feel my soul grouping in the dark
And then, you say
When you decided to have me
Did you think you’d be seventy
When I was a sophomore in high school
What’s that like for you, I ask
Weird, I don’t like to talk about it
I’m sorry, I say
Not giving any reasons
Knowing I would just be making them up
We’re just stuck with what we have, I say
O.k. pops, you say
I should have held the water bottle tighter
I’m amazed by your answer
By how fast you work things out
Just then a man with spear and fins
Swims into the empty bay
Dragging a net of lobsters
We sit near him watching him use his spear
To show us how hard the lobsters bite
How tenaciously they grip
How one will claw and kill the other
If they are in the same bag
How did you get here, he asks
Walked, I say
It’s a long way back, he says
And in the intensity of the moment
Looking at the lobsters
I see your presence, how clear you are

CLI
Walking back on the King’s highway
That story you told me, you say
About human sacrifice
The night when no pigs squeal
And no dogs bark
When the priests
Walk through the village
Do they really kill someone
For making a noise
It was a cruel world, I say
Forbidden things were punished by death
What if they were silent all night, you say
Did they wait for the next night
No, if there was no noise at all
It was a good omen and the sacrifice
Would come about some other way
The king had to have a victim
Ku required a human sacrifice
The king must die to be reborn
It’s an awesome idea filled with mystery, I say
When I die I want to b reborn also
Scatter my ashes here
It’s a good place for a new beginning
Do you really want to be burned, you say
Sure who wants to be eaten by worms
How come you didn’t burn mom
She didn’t want that, I say
After she died I felt her presence
Telling me what to do, where to bury her
If you were young, you say
Would you surf now
Sure, but the thing about age is that
You’re too old for
For most of what you’d like to do
But other possibilities exist
Oh my god, look at the walls, you say
I see how stoked you are
Seeing the symmetry
The perfect placement of stones in parallel lines
Like trees planted along the Apian way
Running from one ridge to the next
And into the horizon
Where past and present cease

CLII
So I have let loose
Those poor identities
That kept me
Clapped in obscurity
And it is time to show myself
Watch the old fires burn out slowly
See the world spread its evening light
I am not here
Like other fisherman
My fishhooks are empty
My long poles have no
Chunks of squid
Baited on the line
I have came only
To hear your quiet voice
Find my passion
Return home
To humpbacked whales
Billowing swells
To what I loved
When I was young
A little love god lying in my sleep
I hear your voice now
Awakening to things external
To black lava mountain flows
Pools burnished in the
Flames of day
Awakening to thoughts
To poems I have loved
Wanting only
To marry well in the next life
And I hear your sweet voice saying
Love’s fire heats water
Water cools not love

CLIII
Awake now on the King’s highway
To darkness brushing the earth
To the high pitched hollow ringing
Of the lava bells
To purple light falling
On a million stones
To rocks breathing
Moving now from a hazy path
To a more precise highway
A mountain goat
Stepping on the trail
More surely
A gliding motion in my stride
Seeing the beautiful kiawe
The buzzing gnats
Huge boulders peripheral to my vision
Knowing the way I came
And where I came from
And keeping a direction
Heading due west
From dry scorched lands
To cascading rivers
Leaving the mountains
Into a lush land

CLIIII
Below me my soul unfolds like milky glass
Wave after wave forming and reforming
An infinite kaleidoscope of ornamental shapes
Huge white boulders gathered in the sea
Sea creatures feeding on the reefs
Shadows breaking on the water
Wind stirring the ocean’s surface
While in the depths an undiscovered reef
Each still life a teeming secret
Each gaze unable to separate
One moment from the next
A perfect unceasing being
Whose very end, begins again