Hawai‘i Literature & Art
— Since 1978 —
How To Get To My House Go past the gate whitewashed from hawked gobs See the words scribbled in fear to offend, JAP GOOK CHINK Cross to the left, Straight to my heart, Sweet rainwater…
Memories of the Moon and Bon Dance Ed Bon Dance Ed and I make the circuit every season, He rides shotgun for my navigation to temples tucked away In valleys, under and along freeways, and forgotten places, Sometimes we get lost going home And laugh about becoming urban legends, never to be seen again. …
The Japs, my mysterious kin, Had just bombed Pearl Harbor. Each night thereafter, Each home Was allowed one blackened light. So, windows were tarred And cracks under doors were Stuffed with rags, chastizing The light that dared to wander. The block wardens would then Come to check out the lights. Violators were startled by the…
Fragile tree limbs cup The weight of the yellow moon Cane erupts through the soil
I wouldn’t get caught dead in Dubai, so probably then in the end the tallest building I’ll ever have visited in my lifetime is the Shanghai Tower. I went there last year, and two years before, both times to feel that momentary rush to the 128-story top, take a 360-degree survey to spot any changes…
Use any ideas you come up from these excerpts as writing prompts. Let your mind wander, and let’s write. Scales glisten; pink whiskers jut out. Some are the color of mud, others recall the embroidery of coats placed on babes one-month old. Fat, round, small: they lay on the crushed ice, stall after stall….
October Words (Sing to the tune of “Battle of New Orleans”.) The Buckaroo says we should take him by surprise And write whatever words we see Within our inner eye, A challenge aimed my way, it seems, like, “Catch this where you are,” A bucking knuckleball he hurls, White lightning in a jar. (Stop singing.)…
When I started getting interested in girls, I used to go bananas over the chicks in my school but could never seem to score any of them. I’d watch movies every night and study how the guys on TV would always pick up the chicks. They made it look so easy. I tried some of…
(At 5:10 pm Saturday in Honolulu, Hawaii, it is 5:10 am Sunday in Paris, France), a twelve-hour parenthesis conjoining (this week’s last day with last week’s first) or vice-versa (first day of this, final day of previous, depending on whether you stand in Paris or Honolulu facing east or facing west). By all accounts, their…
Stop the Clock Benevolent Time sat cross-legged on the mantle smiling, saying she’d push it over, her index finger often faking flicking it, when, to my surprise, this Time she did, a warmest look, punctuated by the sound of shattering glass as my clock fell to the floor and crashed, Time finally fracturing my need…