Hawai‘i Literature & Art
— Since 1978 —
The Rat is gone, the Ox feels lucky. It is said that wearing metal and the lucky colors, yellow and green, will bring prosperity. I wear my gold and jade Chinese ring whenever I go out. I used to call it my Green Lantern ring. Now it’s my Ox ring.
Moe ka wahine I ka pōuliuli Moe i ka mālie ka wahine inu ʻawa Uē ihola ke kāne ʻili kou Na ke kumu ʻulu kona hoa moe Na ka manu ʻai maiʻa ka hewa Nānā iho nā akua i ka noʻonoʻo Lele aʻe ka pueo Kāhea ka ʻalalā ʻĀ mai nei ka imu. (Translation)…
Here are some more writing prompts for February. Remember, it’s entries of EXACTLY 50 words this month. From “Scenes from Childhood: Palolo Valley,” by Joseph S.M.J. Chong All I can remember is Anita curled up on the parlor floor screaming as my father stood above her, leather belt in hand, lashing her. My mother was…
He paid for one night with his last twenty hidden away in his otherwise empty wallet the gallon of cheap red weighed heavily in the brown paper bag, stuck between a dog-eared copy of Edgar Allan Poe’s Tamerlane and Other Poems by a Bostonian one of only 50 copies printed long ago he had found…
My aunty ask if we like go cruising. We like go. All us kids. She make the music real loud. Her boyfriend jus wen hook up sounds. Cigarettes and bass fill the passing air. We drive the winding road, down to the beach. Everybody looking. She shoot one quick shaka.
I’m four years old, surrounded by my father’s family for the first time. Their sun-leathered skin confined by starched cotton clothes, brown eyes jumping all over me, land hard on my mother, an ivory-skinned beauty, eyes flashing like sunrise, like her nation’s flag– bearing the bitter weight of her birth.
One summer I towed a Citroen 2CV From Hamburg to Copenhagen Using two silk neckties as rope Connecting it To the Dutch bicycle I rode. It was faster And more reliable Than the French car Into which I’d crammed All the shit A novice traveller to Europe Just might need.
Nursing my beer at the Shack in Mililani, watching Quiet screens with lost men chasing balls As lost as the men sipping beer in the half-light Unsuccessfully trying to bury their hangovers Longing eyes glued on waitresses derrieres While upstanding citizens leave church across the street Just another Sunday morning
Okay, Happy Valentine’s Day in advance. I love you all. This month how about 50 words max. Sounds good to me. Here are some prompts you can use or not; it’s to you. Joy Gold actually used the kitchen sink in one of her January pieces. You can use the kitchen sink as well. All…
One thing about owning an old car is that it gives you a good excuse to spend hours poking around wrecking yards, archaeological sites of great interest and value as repositories of automotive truth. Having just excised two adjectives from that sentence, I’m wondering whether to put them back in and whether I should find…