All that is Impermanent

The sky holds all that is impermanent

in the eye’s reflection.

Like infinite sand grains

a gaze through the

stained glass illusion

that if anything stays true

to the way we remember it,

it is in the quintessences.

If the pain of loss is

an empty beach,

the pounding surf is

soundtrack to all that is out of reach.

The tranquil intervals that

swim through the inner reef

are carried away

on waves of

galloping horses and white spray.

A distortion to the veneer

that faith makes

surface over

all that is unclear.

The sea ,the source of

both reverence and fear.

A clash of cymbals reveal

a pair of swallows

from the deepest recesses

of symbolic release.

A swoop and a figure eight

to trace memory,

to find a face in the waves

stranded like a moon

still plain in daylight.

Years later it still remains,

smooth as a shell

over the sea

symmetrical

as a drop of water,

a pule lehua landing

on the wild naupaka.

Each thread of cloud

ushers in the change.

Light and shadow,

the interplay of branches,

in the totality a sway

and the cut of a blade

that touches

but does not alter

the horizon or

the immensity of space.

The world has swallowed us

in this place of benevolent delusion.

The elements lending themselves

to the spirit’s intrusion

between moments

layered like dreams

over the creative streams

cascading like sand

into the fissures

of impermanent footprints.

Momentum in the Surrendering

If the essence of travel

is like a bottle

on the floor of a moving bus,

it can encapsulate

a momentum in the surrendering,

how every curve in the road

repositions its

temporary home.

With the imagination as a source

and destinations unknown,

there’s a pause over a glassy surface

like the reflection of pines

from a chair on an empty pier.

See them penitent in this light,

pressed against the sky

and in crystalized moments

the breaks in the clouds

 fall back into place

on glacial lakes.

There are simple rituals of control

in a fractured life,

the boiling kettle

that begets tea

in a green leafed kitchen,

Tai Chi that steeps the internal

in a laundry beneath

the backdrop of mountains.

There is something sublime in

running of hands

over ridgelines and the curves

that follow the currents

of continuous movement.

Like the trains

who by track and tunnel

deconstruct images

that huddle beneath passion, variety.

Through these windows

the inevitable takes shape

and life gives it strength

by the knowledge of the end of the line.

A momentum in the surrendering,

the landscape’s haphazard design.

From a veil of dark,

from whatever meaning

can be divined

from memory’s spark

in a field of fog,

the commingling of shades,

journals and coffee stains,

the night blending into day.

Along these borders,

dreams and swollen rivers

a life blood is

sourced from a common ancestor,

the past is only passing through.

Adapting but never arriving,

embracing but never evading

the ever-present chaos

sewn into the stitches

of a fabric unraveling.

This rite of passage,

the unfinished fragments

of letters and old poems

from a life mostly forgotten,

is shown to have its own momentum

not in the surrendering

but in seizing the moment.

Birth

1.

In the beginning,

born out of the emptiness

of dust and red dirt ,

Kukaniloku appears at 4AM

like an oasis

reinforced through the reverence

of royal births for centuries

the energy of extreme duress

focused and juxtaposed

to the serenity of natural forms.

Breathing in and out

of a circular grove,

the nocturnal breeze

animates the eucalyptus trees

as it always has.

Bearing witness

to what remains conduit,

initiating internally,

the way scent

is directly linked to memory .

The tingling of the fingers,

as it feels for release,

pushing hands with the silence.

The sequence of stones,

smooth and inanimate,

rise from verdant fields.

A woman’s profile,

in the latest stage of hapai,

her dark ridges swollen on the horizon

soon giving birth to the sky.

Deep within the

island’s center,

far from our gaze

comes the cries of strays

feral cats, wandering roosters

those sheltering under tent flaps

sound off and give way

as the last gasp of night

turns into day.

2.

In the recesses of

disassembled words,

from out of the rubble

where art is born

and trauma is transformed,

comes the point of release,

and the gradual changes,

no longer fully dark

but understood by degrees.

In the east

light fills in the cracks

like a paint that is applied

to father sky’s canvas,

the first rays of insight.

From the understaining

comes a vision, manifesting in

patchwork images and plucked lichen

that through the sea mist

stressed photosynthesis

changes color

on maritime gravestones.

It textures the illumination

beneath track lights and

on subterranean walls

the picture becomes clearer ;

a verdant field, a pastoral scene

as you step away.

3.

The Cape

was on the edge of

the distant past.

Absorbed in the fog,

disappearing into the landscape

of wood and bog

wandering like a coyote

past Chatham light at dawn.

Beyond the last clapboard cottage,

our eyes meet

as they did across the fire

in the earthen structure of the Wetu.

Wooden benches

facing each other

and in that space you imagine

all that came before, those

surviving in the face of nature.

There was no separation,

until one day we’re scattered

and the gatherings fewer.

Greater is the distance traveled

to celebrate birthdays and origins,

a mother a grandmother,

the sun which warms us

and from whom all have grown

to appreciate each passing moment.

Each time the light is

a deeper hue of gold

as it begins its descent through windows

until absorbed into the sea

and in our eyes

verdant fields grow darker

and this cycle replenishes endlessly

the sense of collective identity

on the edges and in the spaces

where most things

begin and end.

Bottom image is the painting entitled “Ispica 6” by Dominick Takis Sr.

acrylic oil lichen sprayfoam branch media in silicone caulking on canvas.

To view more of his art please refer to this website:

https://dominicktakis.com/

Milky Way Cove

If all light is born out of darkness

and the land returns to the sea

carving new dimensions

restructuring the boundaries

and the demarcations of time

that starve dreams of their totality.

To search for significance

in emptiness,

embracing the sun,

the unseen fires beneath

salty layers where creativity is born,

where the ancestors and their manifestations

are afloat over a sense of purpose.

Pulling islands out of nothingness,

these dark shapes

dimly aware of climbing

from the shade to another plane,

no longer steering

but yielding to the way the material mingles

with the concealed.

May the wind be guide

daybreak the first breath

to begin again,

transitioning with the tides.

Another wave of the hands and the lowering of oars.

A bend at the waist was the horizon,

the edge of the desk

permeable and stretched

over this limbo, waiting for signs,

for the stars to allign.

Drifting towards the

milky way cove in

an explosion of foam,

immutable forms

scattered in ink

disintegrating into

the awareness

of the furthest reaches of

a palpable silence.

Beneath everything

in a vast stream of consciousness,

you seek direction through undulation,

solitary passages from

a recurring dream.

Upon this craft of words

built for navigation,

you make circles in coastal fog,

piercing like beacons

these poems of the disappearing dark to light.

Each year feeling further from land,

from all the goals and plans.

The emotional resonance from

the past reveals

love and pain as two sides of the same

cloud shadow and raised coral,

seen from above

perceived through that mirror,

where is the boundary

between the light and the sea?

The immovable star?

The guide pulling me further from sleep?

Emptied of what is and isn’t necessary,

a blank sheet daily

for words and becoming complete

before night sweeps in

to begin it all again.

Songbird

What is the measure of mortality

dangling on the end of a string

that hangs in the wind

against the weight of the sky’s

great nothing?

Is it listening for the sound of a songbird

echoing

in the dark and ever so faint?

Like a streak of light,

elusive, stranded

a lock of hair

standing out to show its age

a white bird buoyant

against the expanse of mountains

no longer caged by time.

You can imagine

spirits assembled around

the sunset statues of capital,

wings illuminated,

the waning light

unfurled like a cloth

coiling through banyans,

canopied in song

rooted, acoustic

this world a vibration

descending below

the horizon

like the moon and its ritual glow

I mistook for windows

when obscured by buildings.

I went to open the curtains

of my eyes

to let the sky in

to let a songbird fly out

before vanishing into thin air.

Everything fades

like a dream into the consciously aware,

these luminaries that pass before us,

the moon, the waiting clouds

what can be measured

by the light that is left behind?

Textures, Gestures

Textures, gestures

into the time lapse

haze of morning,

the spontaneous eruptions

of clouds forming within

what appears static and glass

reflecting the easiest passage

around obstruction.

A break in the rocks ,instruction,

swift action

to balance the rigidity

of thoughts

disguised as wisdom.

Sinking somewhere

unconscious

beneath the surface,

the river stones

smooth as tear drops,

far flung and sinking

deep within an archipelago of

birds singing.

Flecks of light like candles,

shadows and their cave mouths commingling,

each motion creates words

reinforced by moonlight

even after the flames of meaning die.

Textures, gestures,

the eyes in a painting.

Faces in the falls,

rock walls,

the profiles of angels in miniature,

ascending

from cracks and fissures

like the first idle thoughts

that spread

from Le’ahi to Koko head,

lighting

the first spark defiant rim

that holds all the dark within

a cloud fabric’s

somber poem.

Underscoring the bedding,

thresholds in the wedding,

dawn and dark,

a consummation in time.

It comes to penetrate the mind’s

El Greco sky.

Bridging storm clouds

with white shrouds of calm

in the perfectly

swirling turbulence that

contrast unites

in the overtures of this day

in what endures of this night

along the edges of impermanence.

you become aware of it

only as it changes again.

Thoughts and Rain

It begins with the wind

the tickling of chimes

a prelude to the rain

that unwinds

from this fabric of anticipation.

From Kolowalo

the sheets descending

in lost silver sentiments

with no beginning and no ending.

Corresponding thoughts

intervals of rain

a tapa cloth

left out to dry in vain.

Where the smallest drops accumulate

all the things that pass.

Still in your grasp,

yesterday’s papers

soaked through with words

of temporary relief

all the patchwork parched earth

experiences nourishment

though brief and never permanent,

a wet embrace won’t be held for long.

These sentiments,

rivulets of mist

left to describe

what swirls, breaks and disintegrates.

It is worthy to venerate,

in essence

this passage without pursuit,

a luminescence caught in street lamps,

a disappearing moon.

Nothing is fixed in the veritable fog.

When the rain stops

pendulous drops still

cling to wires like

amorphous fingers

plucking stringed instruments,

all the silent notes falling

to the pavement below.

Clouds pass over

the obscured picture.

The memory of an ancestor

drawn out by the scent

of wet bark and ginger,

nameless musk

in the movement of streams

that subterranean rush

of acoustic drains

and neon dusk

dreams stained

wet streets of smeared ink

unintelligible

in windshield silk screens.

The wipers cleared

the glass beads

of surface sweat

and heartbeat

in rhythm with the rain

over and over again.

The sudden deluge,

immersion

and then becoming.

Myths and Whispers

Amidst the white noise and distortion

that lingers behind the transmission,

the shame and coercion,

fear’s formless shape shifting.

The future unknown,

with no bearings,

is solitary, self contained, .

set against a perpetual rock wall of options,

there remains a way.

Through the creation

of something parallel,

something that stands on its own

and often hidden from view.

Just off of the road

beyond the subdivision,

like a temple structure

existing in enigma to dreams.

Illuminating from the deepest soil,

the buried fish hooks of space and time,

a map of stars

to navigate the night and the fears.

I do not share the same

Listening with the eyes

and not the ears.

Despite divisive landscapes

and lack of balance,

the spirit remains

in alignment with motion,

the underlying current

in an endless ocean.

Something beyond the mist

and the mind

myths and whispers

moving the tides,

turning streets to streams,

without resistance it guides

a light surrender

to the will of the outrigger.

To the waves and the words

that bob up for release,

to creativity,

a sturdy craft in the chaos of dis-ease.

Crystal Parallel

The shift was palpable.

From the road

through the first layer of trees,

the mind quietly surfaces

somewhere parallel.

Between the notes of a Shama

leading deeper

by beak and by feather,

the lyrical river

initiates the medicine

in the essence of nature

with canopied light

to transcribe the

enigma of moss

on illuminated stone

faces from the past

when you’re no longer alone

in reflection

in pictures and portals

through dark pools

for the outstretched wings

emerging.

With stealth you’ll go

tree to tree

through the valley,

emissary to the summer breeze

that breathes

in one animated pull of the string,

everything is tied together.

Your white feather

was the first light

in the night sky,

woven in the outlines

of mountains,

a temporal indention

in all the transitioning.

The serenity of streams,

the crystal renewal

of movement

that doesn’t cling to branches

or any one position.

Like a worm in the beak

of indecipherable information,

I’ll go with you down valley.

In Wailupe

rock root meandering.

In Moanalua

by the ruin of a grand staircase,

this parallel place

hidden from view,

caressed and cool

ribbon of silence

only broken by song,

caught in the jungle’s mesh

lush beneath palms.

A thrush and the passing rain

will nourish the parched,

far from the city squalor

and those who’ll twist nature

into backdrops,

into what can be quantified,

voices disrupting the silence.

In the nexus of choices,

there are those that lead you back.

Time, with crystalline continuity

becomes a thought,

firm, re-assuring

that I would rather be here than there,

coming to meet

that which is obscure

but never leaves.

This Moon Was a Mirror

1.

I was seeing it through

an enlarged image of my eye.

Magnified

in an optometrist’s portal,

hanging

in the night sky

like a red lantern,

a flowering blood moon

beginning to eclipse.

This thread of lava

upon the edges of sleep,

reveals a mirror,

a thin measure of light

as from a dying star

would accentuate the spheres

on 3AM screens to be

drawn out of cloud cover,

culled from the crude understanding

of dreams, the coincidence

of two orbs,

differing only in scale,

delicately passing

in the dark that reveals

both to each other in time.

2.

Truth was a moon

that waxes and wanes,

receding like the light of certain

smoke obscured beacons,

incoherent

at times skewed like headlights

beaming into forests.

A blinding or illuminating

belief,

at times hardened, until rigid

as a charred landscape

where words offer no traction

in the forgotten fields of history.

Where bonfires

burn all evidence,

blackening the edges

of the past

and what is known.

Nothing is left visible,

no bridge over the swollen flow,

only rock fall and spinning narratives,

headline fear ad infinitum.

Everything appears in transition,

reason is the first to be cast

into volcanic shafts,

covered over by distress

beneath simmering pools

and with each layer

is pushed further under.

3.

Moons above

the dark inlets of sleep,

where beaks seize the dreams

beneath surfaces.

The sunken pebbles,

the unseen watercolors

of an embedded mystery.

Shades in the crane’s river,

given by the baby’s mother,

will float alone

in bathwater.

Serenely seeking the unknown

in a sea with no compass.

Buoyant, weightless,

void of machinery.

Words offer only gravity,

limbs, humanity

as poems branch out in the distance

like a rain tree of bird choruses.

The refrain was just another name for change,

sound passing invisible borders

like footprints on empty beaches.

Estranged swallows

will breach the deep

where the moon disappears

like a blinking eye

on the edge of the horizon

and the watchful sky.