Hawai‘i Literature & Art
— Since 1978 —
I borrowed my wife’s lipstick wrote them in the corner of the mirror that was last January the words kind of smudged my 2020 resolutions forgot about them in February I stare at them they wouldn’t have worked anyway with the kind of year we had but still too ashamed to put up new ones…
Beyond the spectral depths of Pele’s throat lies a sensory deprived world where summer winters and days dim long into the night, where winds sculpt ice into waves and absolute silence screams, cultivating a lingering insanity– irrelevance in a place where all lines of longitude meet and the earth doesn’t move–a place of eternal white…
Sixth grade, our Americanization was through the Standard School Broadcast sent to each classroom via a wired speaker. Listening to the speaker on the wall meant we didn’t have to do any work for half an hour. Most times Alfred fell asleep and snored quietly. Mrs. Chong took the broadcast as an opportunity to rest…
I gave you everything I want it back all of it right now even all these years later unless you don’t have it anymore all tossed long ago me baggage you didn’t want to carry the way I carry you suede smell of must now before wheels heavy, before words broke, the handle I carry…
To complete the Carlsbad Experience, cavewalkers are encouraged to return at sunset to watch clouds of bats emerge from the depths of orifices far beyond the gentle limits of our polite walk, their nightly maraud of the desert sky. Affirmative. I shall return, but in the meantime I’ll find a quiet place at the back…
Okay. Here’s to a healthier and one hell of a happier 2021. Let’s write. Good therapy. This month the word count is exactly 75 words. Not 74, not 76, or 75 and a half. Exactly 75 words. Prompts: 1. From “Mauna Loa,” by D. Keaweehu The fog often settles on the slopes of Mauna Loa,…
Wind and rain strike the roof And river the streets. Flowers drown in a muddy Mix of eggshells and ill leaves. I wonder if they’ll survive. At night the power goes out. We bust out the candles. Living sparks the non-living lumpy wax Man. He melts the uncertainty Of the dark with every flicker….
She rolls over. Snoring, puffing air, then quiet. Gusts of wind blow through her wiry hair Sun shines on the leathery cracks. On her face, her elbows, her knees, the soles of her lu’au feet. Tutu? You sleeping? No answer. Tutu? Puffing, grunting. Too lazy to open her eyes. She replies. Yeah, jes one short…
Deep Water Old rhythms persist— I wash, and she dries dishes After meals turned silent By stillborn thoughts. I am a visitor in mother’s kitchen Where clutter and restraint sit side by side, Pots stored on stove burners, Pans stacked neatly in the oven While cups and bowls scatter Across green linoleum counters. …
tent walls wildly flap trying to take flight follow the trades salty ocean smell lingers in the air rusted broken beach chair monument to better times two hundred feet to the showers and fresh clean water gas stove on low simmering chicken long rice soup more rice less chicken to last for three meals tent…