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/

Through the Screen Wired Door

Her father was a stranded moon

a faint and far off hue

in the corner of the eye

at a low table and blue stool

set against the sky

beyond the screen wired door

that divides the world from this room.

Solitude sets the angles,

rooftops and distant birds

that primary layer of painted clouds

gracefully waving

as hands clutch the blade

of morning light descending

on the ridge of Le’ahi

as it rises in a diamond above the sea.

He was up early,

walking the rails again,

visible yet pale

as the slightest pain in the legs,

abandoned in outtakes,

in the hint of rain and asphalt,

somewhere a scent,

a self medication

lingers over the absence.

In Banjemin tiger balm eucalyptis,

I’m reminded of your presence.

With oranges and altar incense,

you’ll drift through the corridor.

In sizzling wok and summer evenings,

the past bubbles to the surface.

Brackish thoughts in the kitchen pots

bring invocations of steam

and in the waters the lucid dream

of seeing you sprinkling spices, the final touches.

There’s an ever present wind

that passes through everything.

The chaotic tail whip of the phoenix of myth

or the gentle plumeria scented breeze

that softens the city dissonance,

you knew these contrasts well.

At the base of the valley,

channeled through the gates of Moiliili,

an epicenter of energy and volatility.

Peeling back years of revolution,

like dust from the ceiling fans.

The nights offer no resolution

only the mere suggestion

of shadows in motion.

Silhouettes in jealousy, voices,

rivulets of smoke from an ashtray

drifting in eternity

through the screen wired door

and back again

to animate what remains of you,

merely dormant

dismantling time

until I no longer differentiate

between memory

and the passing of the wind.

In this physical space so long occupied,

l’lI find a continuity

in all the shades you left behind.





Aihualama in Darkness and Light

1.

During the day, when darkness gathers in the shade

and waits for the sun to wane

between clefted rock and fan palm shadowplay

spilling like an ink over the forest floor,

there is a filling in the cracks

the way the pen interacts

with light and dark to facilitate the change.

The light that is shapeshifting from view,

tempers the fade with a golden hue,

arresting for what seemed an eternity

in the ebb and flow of the afternoon.

 

2.

In the labyrinth of dim-lit paths and somber corners,

the myth of Kahalaopuna permeates.

From the highest reaches of thought

from ridge lines shaped into a profile,

it spreads over a solemn ramble

between the cathedral rows

of red bark and flickering candle.

The mottled rays

strewn and stained beneath the canopy,

lends an ambient glare

to the incense that hangs in the air

with a hint of Eucalyptus.

The notes of a passing stream

snaking between the variations of quiet.

Light and shadow, sound and echo,

a white-tipped thrush

brushes the dark with sudden communication

fluttering from limb to limb

until the last of its sound

gets lost in the silent film,

muffled in the dense coils of Banyans.

 

3.

When the forest is an internal state,

every step is a thought

every left lends fabric to the dream

of the self that fills the space

between darkness and the birth of words

between rockfall and the scars of collision

between the origin of mystery and the orator’s revision.

A swarth of light brings a reprieve

from the weight of time and entrenched belief.

With the rain a renewal,

as paths switchback towards a view

of a knife’s edge over the void

on which you ascend, as if on a thread,

returning to that of substance again.

 

4.

Myth, from a hidden source in the jagged cliff,

would course through grooves of rock and softened earth.

Like a lifeblood for the roots,

nourishing the pursuit of the past

in cool heights and shimmering pools.

The wind scattered patterns of leaves,

plaited wrinkles on the sylvan streams,

whispering from behind the chaos of the falls

a rhythm in ceaseless shhhhhh,

a gaze in vertical awe

where the light retreats , the waters fall

from the mossy contours, from a stoic face

that will not betray the location of burial caves

nor their processions.

By singing shell and sacred moon,

by torch and by trail,

they’ll pass through Aihualama,

through cottages of the plantation era,

even Tudor mansions

offer no obstruction,

as the past and the present is bridged

by a moment’s reconstruction

luminous in the darkness of time

is the light of memory.

The Courtyard Hibiscus

While under the effects of treatment,

it may have been a hallucination.

The sudden visitation of wind to the courtyard,

with just a hint of ocean breeze

can be a reprieve

from the prison of blinking machines.

A transfixed gaze now shifts

to the lone Hibiscus flower

that draws him in

while the others droop and nod for the hour.

From its corner it opened like a portal,

a chamber, delicate, tropical,

the possibility of return unfolding

from out of the drab rock walls

that in this heightened state seem to fall away.

Recalling the stark black and sharp edged

volcanic stacks of heiau on Oahu,

he suddenly smells the bouquet of fallen fruit,

or perhaps their decay,

overwhelming the noxious odor

of burnt cafeteria food.

The sweat on his brow is transformed

to the gentle touch of a passing rain.

The kaleidoscope in his brain

that distorts vision,

becomes a back valley rainbow’s incision

of color through the clouds.

Thoughts that hover in the depths,

now lift to the peaks

light as feathers

luminous as the wings of swallows

dancing like transparent slippers across the sky.

Thoughts that endure winter,

just hang in there, freedom’s  at the end of its thaw.

In the rumor of water and evening tide,

you’ll drift on a stranded moon

into the shadow of a dead volcano,

with the specter of diagnosis,

a reverberating echo.

All these arteries lead to the sea.

On the arc of a wave somewhere

an endless moment appeals for integration,

a loosened response more dreamlike

than narcotic rumination,

for death is not the end of illumination,

though I have watched light leaving the face

of a darkened sea,

slipping towards the threshold

of the horizon’s furthest journey.

Awash in the current and gone,

he is wheeled away into the new dawn

fading into the intercom.

A not so subtle intrusion of reality,

becomes a reminder of one’s mortality.

Yet a lasting image remains in full array

through the mental hallways,

this brilliant flower of transformation,

ushering in the recognition that all living things

must open, for it is but a brief window of time,

before it closes once again.

A Voice No Longer Attached

From the last breath come ripples.

A sad death by one’s own desperate choice,

does nothing to silence the voice

still reverberating in waves

through the collective consciousness.

Its infinite octaves

are still peeling sound from space,

re-entering on a spinning plate

to be absorbed through every fibre.

It contains your own painful journey

and the light from its galaxy can guide

the thoughts that do not run aground

but drift through your mind

like ghost ships of sound.

It softened the night,

only a footnote for its continuation

that could not be measured.

All the change contained in one voice,

The obscure mist-like breath

that covers the moon,

the bells ringing in the day.

With a scale that makes oceans out of rain,

you drew light over silken surfaces,

searching for something in vain

through depths we could never quite fathom.

A voice no longer attached,

like a shattered glass that knows no ceiling

but stealing shards from the sky,

a divine ballroom

collapsed in liquid edges,

suggesting it is more fluid than material.

It returns to the elemental,

the crackling of fire

the far off laughter in a trickster wind

disappearing around a bend.

There was a submission,

after grappling so long with misery,

You slipped to the deep end.

Strung out like clouds along the ridge line,

it was the peaks that pierce you.

The slight crack in a soaring falsetto,

an uninterrupted echo

in the forest, accomplice to what’s hidden in dense brush.

Like the sudden illumination of a spider’s web,

delicate as a vision,

it’s the sudden realization

that we were attached to something fleeting.

How quickly it shifts,

like the switch of the rails.

Metal on metal

fingers across chalk

scraping at the spine

with tingling waves until silenced,

until resigned to the rafters of empty halls.

Now stripped of all pretense,

this tree of its leaves,

with notes falling brilliantly

like flickers of flame

on the surfaces of streams.

It remains vagrant in the subconscious,

like the purpose of dreams,

until at last you align

and drop needles

into the waiting grooves of dark circles

spinning, illuminating

a craft that was always at the point of collapse.

 

In Memory of Chris Cornell

 

An Answer in Emptiness

Unconsciousness,

like an answer in the emptiness of thoughts.

The Rain,

like a rhythmic refrain

on the courtyard and porcelain.

Drowning out then drawing in

to the awareness of footsteps

that seem to express

that they have always been

amplified tears

emissary to a thousand ideas

returning to the place that gives voice to them

over and over again.

Inspiration,

like the night’s perspiration

rests on the edge of an outstretched leaf.

It will teach of the gentle penetration

inherent in nature,

what is consistent when all else

is uncontrolled and unexplained.

The mark it makes on the unraveling bark of the paper tree

is more fluid than ink running down sheets

attempting to mirror something of what I perceive.

Spectator,

framed in a window,

disembodied and hanging suspended,

without an arc or idea,

formless and supple

to shapes though bottomless,

to a vision varying in permanence,

it has no ending and no beginning,

each drop is a footnote

to what has come before,

echoing like a fallen sapling

on the mental awnings.

Immaterial,

it still sends percussion

to the hours where nothing is decipherable

and you’re only afforded a brief view

of what lies behind the veil.

Where you’ll note in the darkness

the silent shadows cast by yard light

painting murals on the walls,

where the past would dissolve into the future

if not for one naked image,

unadorned and without illusion,

the moment’s gentle intrusion

of rain and wind intertwined

like a soothing overture

to an active mind

now composed

from out of the mesh of words

and answers in between

transitioning

into the unconsciousness

that follows the rain.

 

 

 

 

 

The Pali Revisited

The Pali,

that dark depository for all that passes through it.

Wind, wheels, energy,

psychic imprints left like tire marks on the periphery.

The forgotten past straddles median lines with the present,

relapsing in the flash of headlights

like the sudden reflection of moonlight across the eyes,

mysterious pools beneath a canopy’s disguise.

The light finds its way through coils and folds,

illuminating those trapped in banyan choke holds.

It is calculating, seizing hosts, sinister in time.

Simultaneously, it is the substance to the darkness

where the spirit descends,

intermediary for this marriage that depends

on the synchronicity of strangers

thrust into one another by seed or by accident,

punctuated by a rain that stirs up

all that lay dormant in dark contours.

The road follows its bends,

unravelling thoughts that never end,

sucked into tunnels, a gaping mouth

that funnels the fear

from one generation to the next,

born out of these corners, legends endure.

Over windward’s steep ravine,

some took the curve too sharply,

dead teens in careening trajedy

comingle in red clay.

With no shoulder to lean

over this auto graveyard,

flashlights will gleam off derelict fenders

and last screams linger over the screetch of brakes.

This pain re-awakes in those who suffer in silence

while wind accentuates the absence.

deeper into that forest of loss,

older passages trail off to no answer.

Wind, an instrument for a troubled mind,

sets in motion the swaying vines,

caressing wet air, dangling hair

descending from cool heights where

a mist would appear, is it more than it seems?

Does it backdrop the myth, will it penetrate dreams?

The Pali leaves you stranded again,

tricking you with voices and visions,

so you place alms in the crux of stones for fallen victims,

offer empathy, lest we disturb what is underneath,

skulls the highway keeps,

tunnels cursed to know the interior of burial caves.

How many workers unfortunate to find shallow graves,

tie Ti leaves to truck beds before driving it again?

That endless loop wound tightly to the mountain’s circumference,

straddling that extraordinary line

between the material and the spirit,

darkness and the divine.

The Pali, a psychological barrier,

intermediary for whatever you bring over.

The Wound

When night finally collapses,

dawn is the wound through which the light passes.

As the great moon, in the trajectory of its swoon,

consolidates to day,

witness its fade into listless clouds

braced for a fall

with only a thin gauze

to soak up the remains of its thaw.

Beyond the slumber of the creator

behind the shear walls of the crater,

smoke fills the windswept precipice,

smoldering beneath the retreat of dark,

the sun was the first spark, the most prominent streak

that flashed across the page.

With a pause to peek over the edges,

it’ll teeter like an illuminated feather

spreading under waves of undulating color

blinding the horizon’s climatic ending.

If words parted the veil of memory,

starting a slow descent from its volcanic cavity,

bright lines would burn from an inner landscape like a vision,

over fields of new growth with regeneration.

Through each entity, no construct spared

nor offered immunity,

it clears every border

progressing towards her sea

where sharks of the subconscious,

sensitive to emotional debris,

encircle the tattered remnants of the past

sinking slowly into shadow,

eclipsing the material

with shades of stained glass in eternity.

Like a prism, the light passes through

even the deepest wounds eventually.

 

Tsunami, what may have been

In light of imagining what may have been,
tsunami anxiety reveals a place to be more water than land,
flimsy and wafer thin
mole hill made into a mountain,
we may elevate but are we ever truly safe?
Our precious lives on thin strings,
lines of parked cars unraveling like beads
into a sea that comes to strip all to necessity.
It recedes in whitewash,
building on the horizon like a layer of static,
a distant transmission becomes a warning,
a gargantuan trick of the eye
and you have to look twice,
lulled by disbelief,
nature’s brief revelation to the damned.
It now doubles forward
with the force of a cataclysm.
The sound of sirens and countless alarms
scatters the mob at shoreline charmed,
freezing the clocks,
when reasoning stops, there is only survival.

Before the buildings and bridges fell,
doomsayers would yell out
“Get to higher ground!”
Animals growing restless in their cages
bird silence punctuates the ages
between the impending pause
and the tightening claws
that clamp down and than recede,
baiting the breadth of the sea
to come forward again, but so quickly!

If there was something you could grab hold of
when that muddy bullforce of machine debris
and blood topples all in its path,
sweeping the land free in one gasp,
it laps at the foot of fallen mountains
before returning again
over the scene of the crime so to speak,
that no man’s land
that leaves only street signs like bent bristles,
telephone poles and lines
crucified and adrift against concrete barges,
the swirling wood of toppled garages
merging into one mangled shape.
Who escapes that hulking mass
of steel and glass city
folding in on itself like a fault line rift?
Everything slips into that darkening plain,
each interval more acute,
the leveling destruction, the degree of pain
and in the eternity of time it takes between waves,
what remains is the realization,
that it has just begun.

Bloated bodies bob up
to float spread eagle
like horrible rafts
through the gutted aftermath,
tied in tourniquets of earth,
channeled like a capillary burst,
inside to out, everything is reversed
and when that terrible day wanes
and the ugly liquid drains
what you’ll see resembles massacres on a battle plain
and like the smoldering of trash-heaped dumps
on the edges of humanity,
people will come to comb the debris for loved ones,
to pull a familiar face
from the disfigured disappearing act,
the double feature of disaster and aftermath
merging in an amorphous mass.
making a mockery of innocence, exposing our helplessness,
we felt it quiver
those comfortable strings that hold it together,
revealed as so flimsy
in the light of this tragedy,
how in an instant it can all be ripped away,
swallowed by the crack that reveals this reality
was underneath it all along.

Kinsale and the Residue of Mystery

When the fog lifts off of Kinsale Harbor
and you see the sun reflected
like the pale eye of a dead fish
in the murky waters of tangleweed and shipwreck debris,
note that some places are left with an unmistakable residue of mystery.

When the blue heron lifts its distinctive wings
from the wellspring of Kinsale Harbor,
its languid sweep will remain etched
like a deep thread in the memory of ancestors.
Blue hewn and imbued with significance,
it carries unseen alms
for those who go down to sea
to gather pebbles
and piece by piece reconstruct their history.

When the legend of the white lady is lifted
from the lips of locals living by Kinsale Harbor,
you recognize the enduring motif
of tragedy and unrequited love
evident in all these stories
that haunt quiet lanes and Norman churches.

Shadows fleeting, we catch mystery in the details,
words sticking to you like an oppressive air,
when attached to a physical place,
we put them down in fog-obscured and isolated towns
where the imagination is bound to usher in the drowned dead
to wander through another headland in the sea.
If it is in your disposition to receive these visions,
they’ll be reaching through windows,
or if auditory, their subtle transmissions
get trapped like a piper’s notes
to float like the widow’s ghost
over the silence of old forts.
Amplified, the recording is replayed over and over
on the rampart’s leap, they remain spellbound,
this port town where this is recurring.
You see the tide going out,
the sails receding in the first light of morning,
you stayed long enough, it had touched you without warning,
Kinsale and its haunted aura
and in your wake you’ll leave the harbor
but know it remains with you, like a tragic lover,
linked arm in arm under the cover
of memory, of synchronicity,
destined for the recollection of travel
and the impression you left when passing through.