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.

The Precipice

Grains of sand

scattered by brooms of wind

into hands

initiating what comes

without a heading,

that which is quick

to the forgetting,

like a vision

the night is wetting

for smooth sailing

through perilous corridors.

There’s a stranger hand than mine

moving this vessel,

now capsized in the Molokai Channel.

The molten sun dripping bright fallout,

illuminating the outrigger,

navigating to land on future islands

in the memory of sea.

Poised there eternally

for dreams to come ashore.

Sunsets awash with blood and sand,

braile to the feet

grail for the hand

to gather what sails in from Tahiti,

on gentle trades of poetry.

The truancy of its passage caught

in coral structures of thought.

Patient for instruction,

the pen poised on the precipice of paper.

A replica voiced again in fluid meaning.

A representation of text,

the quiet in the land,

some kind of darker architecture,

lines of grafite and paper.

What it implies

as the temple dies

in fissures and cracks

that fracture the colonial residue,

seeping salt water into its tissue,

flooding the apparatus through and through.

Soon this motion is channeled

from the tips of the fingers

to the grips of the pen,

whitely collapsing back out

to form another fist that hits

with porous volcanic impact.

It is never static,

all variation voiced in the choir,

like schools of fish it shifts suddenly.

How to seize this color?

This floating feather

is a metaphor,

caught between moments of readiness,

led by whim and chance,

beautiful coincidence.

Feathers like letters competing for words

but on a softer background,

the place of shadow,

the impression of wind in the sand,

convinced it is from within

but not sure of where to stand anymore.

When whole hillsides collapse into the sea,

will it spare me?

The grasping, the attaching of meaning

to that which is no longer concrete

but sealed in obscurity.

Randy Voyant

You reek of memory

instant recall

involving the random, the exotic,

inconceivable places we passed through,

strange skeletons of what’s suggested

snail gloss on the slippery words we infested

tepid swamps of standing water.

The same scene goes stagnant,

the dream redundant.

Randy, if you leave it,

it will be here when you return,

closing in on itself.

Home, where silence is like sunlight

calling you to be free of walls,

corridor and cushion

the fall

leaves

you adrift

floating downstream

you shape-shift

but do not mix

suspended but not solid

with liquid precision a withdrawal,

it’s been a long time since I followed you

into the disintegration

that would eat through

voices and words

burrowing in the head,

penetrating reflections faced with dread,

you would disrupt my personality

and feed my future instead.

You corroded my position,

dissolved the pressures of decision,

connected rather than dissected,

the ideals I sought

refuge in action before thought

a spark in the dark

like an exaggerated drag

of a hand-rolled cigarette,

calloused, crackling, Navajo ends

you see endure

without a face attached to them.

Non-attachment guarantees no exemption from pain.

The less you speak, the more I understand,

blind and tapping over land,

that silence should not be confused with discontent

but used instead as an instrument

to remove obstacles

along this perilous course.