VINYL SUNDAYS

A-Track

We genuflect.
Men dressed by their wives in their Sunday best
kneel on planks of uncross.
Women pass over bread to their children
to deposit in pass-around plate
for confessional clean slate.

Samoan choir sing praises to Jewish mythology.
Tangaloa spits an eye for an eye at our irreverence
He laughs, foreseeing
my first taste of dipsomania lust
is sipping the blood of Keriso.



B-Side

After church
men smoke rollies in the carpark
their backs to the ‘No Smoking’ sign.
Women with backstabbing eyes
smile neon lipsticks
as if painted jujus can mask bullkaka.

I only sing at night because La envies me.
Once, it growled, Suga, stop stepping on my dick!
and tried to burn my voice.
My hymns now flicker
along Masina whispers.



Published in 'Ika 4' 2016

GRIPPING SAND

My feet sink into the sand

as I tramp across the tanned shores

of my grandmother’s village in Samoa.

Waves do not rush in to greet me

I have been away too long and

this slice of the Pacific Ocean

does not easily forget.

I stop and look out into the sea

pristine as the travel brochures portray

            no need for Photoshop

            no government development plans

            no colonisation

I close my eyes and wait...

The messenger wind breezes

salty words into my ears -

            You may have taken your first breath

            on the fanua of my kin, Aotearoa

            but you have neglected the umbilicus sands and waters

            where the kenese of your

            existence is rooted.

The cool breeze leaves me then

to be beaten by the sun’s rays.

I did not notice I was gripping the sand

until I felt silk granules spill from

the Va between my toes;

grains of  late yearning

slipping into a lost past.

Published in 'Ika 4' in May 2016

Porcelain

            Poritahi consisted of a melting pot of Housing New Zealand tenants, middle-class mortgagees, and comfortable homeowners, with the latter two groups occupying most of the area.  Mangle Street was the road situating the hive of the community: the dairy, bakery, Laundromat, park, and the local primary school.  This advantageous stretch of land, however, was dominated by ‘Housing’ residents.  The ‘Mangle Mob’, as they had christened themselves by spraying each other with cans of fizzy drinks, were a pack of Housing kids ranging from seven to twelve-year-olds.  They were a fruit salad of imaginative, boisterous, and colourful kids. 

            When whaea Anahera died, three white vans with cleaners, painters, and gardeners came and went throughout three weeks to erase fifty-six years of her existence in preparation for new tenants.  One week after that, a big blue and yellow moving truck arrived and unloaded furnishings that looked nothing like whaea Anahera’s worn, but homely  furniture.  That was the day the Thompsons moved into Mangle Street.  Pudgy, with greasy dark hair and crooked teeth, eleven-year-old Billy Thompson was an only child.
            At first, the Mangle Mob readily invited the new boy to join them in their childhood adventures.  But the invitations declined to wariness when Akinyi raced and beat Billy across the monkey bars.  Akinyi laughed in her victory, teasing, “Sissy boy!  Sissy boy!”  Billy dropped to the ground, and yanked Akinyi by her dangling legs from the jungle gym onto the grass.  Billy then dragged her kicking and yelling to the nearby ditch and tossed Akinyi rolling into the dirty creek, leaving a litter of broken and crying kids who had tried to rescue Akinyi in his wake. 
            The Mangle Mob’s wariness towards Billy turned into fear when Nassir rebuffed Billy’s command to hand over his last packet of fire-crackers during Guy Fawkes.  Billy took revenge by aiming a mini sky-rocket at him.  Even Nassir’s athletic agility couldn’t outrun or side-step a sky-rocket and the missile struck him square on his bum.  Nassir’s parents rushed their son to the hospital where the staff treated and bandaged his left butt-cheek.  Nassir made himself ill a few days later due to his refusal to do a number two, because the thought of accidentally wiping shit on his bandage was too “freaking gross” for him to bear. 
            Fear turned into hatred the day Billy coerced gentle Jack into letting him play with Jack’s prized fire engine.  Jack had been engrossed with his toy on the footpath in front of his house that morning and didn’t see Billy walking towards him.  Jack had received the bright red gift from his father two years earlier, before his newly-sober mum sent his dad “on a holiday” from which he never returned. 
           “Don’t worry, I’ll be careful with it,” said Billy, poker-faced. 
            With shaking hands, Jack held out the pristine fire engine to him. 
            “Please, don’t wreck it, Billy,” pleaded Jack.  “My dad gave it to me.  He said a man of the house needed a man’s toy.” 
            Billy’s expression suddenly darkened, and before Jack could stop him, Billy snatched the truck from Jack’s hands, smashed it against the concrete and threw it down a nearby street drain.  Jack screamed, staring in anguished horror at all that was left of his father near his feet - an extendable miniature white ladder snapped in two.   
             Late that afternoon, ten-year-old Song and her parents arrived back to Poritahi from visiting relatives.  Song grinned remembering the fun she had at her cousins’ place as she skipped to the park to seek out more merriment.  She hadn’t gotten far when mischievous Sione and Nassir came hurdling over Mr Tanner’s hedge, almost knocking her to the ground. 
           “Ow!  Sheez guys, watch it!”
            “Sorry Song,” said Sione.  “Have you seen that dick, Billy?”
            “Nah.  Why, what’s he done this time?”
            Sione and Nassir relayed what happened between Billy and Jack.  Gentle Jack who was the baby of the mob and wouldn’t hurt a moth.  Song knew how protective the mob were over Jack. 
            Song gasped.  “I just got back from my cousins’ house, so I haven’t seen him.”
“Jack’s mum blasted Billy’s parents, but Billy’s run off,” said Sione.  “The mob’s looking for him so we can smash him.”
            “You wanna come help us look for him?” asked Nassir.
            Song felt sad.  Of all the Housing kids, she was the most sensitive.  She was the one who cried the hardest when Billy had hurt her friends.  She cried when her parents had chaperoned the Mangle Mob to the movies, and Bambi’s mother was shot by the bad hunter, for Chrissake.  The thought of poor Jack...and they all knew what that fire engine meant to him. 
            Sione rolled his eyes when he saw Song tearing up.  “It’s okay, Song, you go home,” he said, “we’ll get him and pay him back.” 
            Song nodded wordlessly.  She turned to walk back towards home as the boys took off in the opposite direction.  Her desire for adventure at the park had evaporated. 
            Lost in her thoughts, Song looked up and was surprised to see she was in front of the Thompson’s house.  She thought of finding a stone to throw at one of the front windows, but decided against it.  It wouldn’t be worth the hiding she’d get if she was found out.  Song was about to continue towards home when she heard a faint tinkling coming from the other side of Billy’s fence.  Quietly, she opened the gate and crept forward, following the sound along the wooden slats under the house.  She stopped near the front left corner when she heard murmuring.  Song crouched to squint between the cracks. 
           There in the dusky space under his house was Billy Thompson.  Spread on the dirt floor was a round tablecloth patterned with bright red and yellow flowers.  Arranged in a semi-circle around the dim light of a silver torch, were: a doll’s cradle; a small table upon which sat two china cups with matching saucers and a ceramic teapot; and an old wooden highchair with flaking green paint. 
            Song swallowed the gasp that almost escaped her throat.  Through the slits, she saw the same grubby, heavy fingers that had punched Sione’s eye black, daintily raise a delicate cup to an exquisite porcelain doll’s pursed, ruby lips. The doll had shoulder-length brown ringlets that bulged from underneath a crimson bonnet with white frilly trimming; the accessory matched the bulky silk dress.
           “Drink carefully now,” Billy said softly, “so you don’t burn your tongue.”
            Billy gently tilted the cup to the rosy-cheeked doll’s bow-shaped mouth.  The doll responded with a blank stare from big brown pupils that suffocated the white parts of the eyes. 
            Song was enthralled with the expression on Billy’s face.  Devotion. 
            “Hey Song, wadaya lookin at?  Is it Billy?  Is he there?”
             Startled, Song yelped as she fell onto her backside.  She heard the shattering of china and the shuffling of feet – then silence. 
           Akinyi and Tessa were walking towards the Thompson’s gate. 
           Song heard a sound that sent chills down her spine.  It was a soft whimpering that reminded her of the time she and her parents had watched as the SPCA arrived at a previous neighbour’s house to take their injured mutt.  Her dad had rang the SPCA after they witnessed the owner beat the creature with a two-by-four plank.  The dog keened as it was carried gently by the animal helpers to the SPCA van.  Blood trickled from its mouth. 
            Song sprung to her feet and hurried away from the sound, towards Akinyi and Tessa.
             “N-nah, n-nothing here,” she stammered. 
Song avoided looking Akinyi in the eye by dusting off the seat of her pants.  She didn’t like lying to Akinyi.  One time at school, Akinyi had given one of the rich boys a beating when he had made Song cry by teasing her about her “scruddy, poor people’s clothes”.  She was Song’s best friend after Elsa, who had been her next door neighbour since kindergarten, but was away in Hamilton visiting her grandparents. 
           Far, where the hell is the egg?” said Akinyi through gritted teeth.

Changing the subject, Song half-heartedly growled, “Sheez, you guys scared the undies off of me.” 

Akinyi laughed, “Sorry.”

“We should try looking around the bridge again,” said Tessa.  “He likes throwing stones at people from there.”   

Tessa had been a victim of Billy’s bridge stone-throwing.  Twice. 

“I’ve gotta go home,” replied Song, “sorry.”

Akinyi smiled, seemingly knowingly, at her friend. 

“Okay, see ya later,” said Akinyi.  She turned to Tessa, “We’ll go check the bridge then, aye?”

Tessa nodded, then turned to Song, “See ya, Song.”

“Bye guys,” answered Song.

Song watched her friends walk around the corner, then she swivelled around and stood there, watching the Thompson’s home.  No movement or sound came from underneath the house.  With a sigh, Song shut the gate behind her and started off home.      

She wished she had stayed the night at her cousins’ place.   

 

 Winner of the '2016 Cooney Insurance Short Story Competition' as part of the 'Cambridge Autumn Festival'

A Great Grand-daughter's Quest: Part II

Part II - Flights of Fantasy

The Time Traveller

packs her notebook and sharp-eyed pencil

into her siapo knapsack

for she is venturing on a quest

through three flights of history

in search of the noble slave

that is her great-grandfather.

She walks over “POWER”

stenciled in threshold light

out towards the wharf.

i.

To secure passage on a mirror ship

sailing across milk glass in hexagon light

the Traveller slips into the shipmaster’s coat

a long-haired beauty

swaying her hips to horny sailors

from a Grimshaw tooth

- there are no milking maids

sitting on whale chairs aboard.

After twenty days and twenty nights

at sea, a boy lookout

spies Godwits puppet-strung in flight.

ii.

The ship lands on the island

from the Traveller’s dream.

She hacks through a forest of

goliath kauri clovers

that cough up gums of spun amber hair.

A palm sunset mutes light on funeral flowers

under a spider caught in its own clay web.

She comes to a graveyard

and shreds shark teeth across the cheeks

of a ghostly schoolmaster

demanding silence from singing dead children.

A spiral ammonite trumpets the apocalypse.

She runs!

Her pores crying sweat

she halts at a clearing

three oracles assembled in a circle.

The Traveller asks the lizard,

“Please, your Wiseness, where do I go from here?”

The four-legged serpent

tongues a forked silence in the air

its third eye senses light

but cannot see.

The lass moves on

to the wise man of the East

but an Imperial race have tainted him

with toga laws -

halo fractured; enlightenment shadowed.

The girl, feeling hopeful and hopeless

steps in front of forget-me-never eyes

a serpent trunk snorts across the Traveller’s forehead

“To me, you should have come first”

with that, the Traveller falls to the ground

from the elephant’s arsenic touch. 

iii.

The Traveller awakens

under a 3-D gateway carved in

700 AD Polynesian patterns.

Dragon-face turtles

swim in black pillar fires

that stand at the entrance

of a confectionary castle.

A butterfly lingers

as the Traveller beats the orient-dog handle

against the rootless tree door.

The Time Traveller steps

inside the whale jaw.

A giant’s kava bowl

floats over a dinosaur table

and welcomes manuia - drink to the skies!

while ivory royals slice a Sunday roast.

She nods at a Maori elder

backed onto a sacrilegious chair

that seated white cushions,

and side-steps

electric branches drooped over a torture chair           

beside a cylinder sink that drains blood and spit.

Up the labyrinth staircase she climbs

then tiptoes through a long dead hall

along the walls, a

cross bleeds poppies

photo faces gaze across at their fallen names

“Let these panels never be filled”…Amene.

At last, the Time Traveller

reaches the doorway to her

mother-island’s entangled histories.

A voice in native language orates memories

but she is drawn to the glass coffins

containing life in past images and words.

                        Indentured labourer great-grandfather

                        is that your solemn Chinese face in the photo?

                        are you one of the field faces hidden under those cone hats?

                        is that your bent back clawing the plantation soil?

Her quest has come to nought

for she cannot tell.  

First published in 'Snorkel #22'  in January 2016

http://snorkel.org.au/022/contents.html

Tripling Absent Bacon

Tripling 

Absent 

Bacon

♠♠♠♠          

Mana-grain bread:

triangle slices of

sky, mountain, trees, and sun.

Nourishment of a promising morning.

♦♥♦♥          

Canoes of Polynesian pixies

carved into palms of trees

provide a shady welcome mat.

Pass Go the caged jungle gym.

♦♥♣♣                  

A variety store displays tropical outfits.

The playful breeze

flicks the fronds of a black coconut tree

against a green Polynesian shirt.

♦♦♥♦          

Rustling siren leaves over three island benches

entice desirous hero faces,

Come, come, triple your dole here.

Trinity temptations: Riches, Pleasure, and ‘Malo, malo, you da man!’

            ♣♦♣♦

Enter the cavern mouth of Chance

Going-nowhere breaths

stagnant over glossy black tabletops. 

Gloom-blue carpet hides the stains of loss

but not the whiff of burnt tobacco.

Skeletal greyhounds on betting screens

cheaper and easier to raise and transport than horses.

Jingles of pokie machines lure seekers deeper.

Asians in Pandora’s booth, Brownies in the game hole

exchanging life savings for imposter Fortune.

Animated crown jewels glare

Horus’ eye looks on suspiciously

Pharaoh faces to the left, to the left

- how far he has fallen.

SHOW ME THE MONEY in candy-pink bold. 

Buttons like fat money bags flash at you 

Bet1, (up to) Bet 20, Spin, Take, Win, Gamble.

         

          ♥♥♠♥

            We have a winner! 

            One one-thousand, Two one-thousand seconds

            of a river gold-rush

            before the winnings are trickled back

            into the smirking slot, for another

            One one-hour, Two one-hour more.

            “Any luck?  I’ll try this one.  If not, then shit aye.”

            Mouths of females with masculine language. 

            Printed white sheets

            posted on fabric covered cork boards –

            obituaries of bank balances

            and family time.

            Brown faces accessorised

            with Made-in-China baseball caps

            that sport American champions.

♦♥♣♠

Back in the outside world, sniggers of siren leaves

rain on op shop Wu-Tang jackets.

Go, go, take your empty pockets back to your hungry home.

Trinity tricks:  Riches, Pleasure, and ‘Faafetai lava, sucker.’

♣♥♠♦

Polynesians buy a variety of Polywear

from Asian displays.

A purple pule tasi sun

sets on a lavalava flower.

♠♥♦♣

The butcher has “Whole Beef, Lamb, Pig, Available”

but not for fractioned wallets.

Silver bullet shit-sheds - call 09 301 0101 for toilet tissues.

Call your relatives for “Pay you back next week, suga” issues.

♥♣♠♦

Cross the zebra bridge again

walk the white planks.

DB Bitter boxer knocked you the fuck out.

Your Mana reduced to crumbs.

First published in the third volume of MIT’s (Manukau Institute of Technology) art journal,

‘Ika 3’.  

New Aoteasamoa

My name is Eleni.  It’s a name from Samoa, the birthplace of my parents.  The vowels are pronounced like those of the native Maori alphabet, but Te Reo wasn’t promoted in New Zealand back in the 1970s.  As a consequence, many palagi mispronounced Polynesian names.

***

            Wh-tch!

            The sting of Miss Ellen’s leather strap burned the palm of my hand.  Miss Ellen was my primer two teacher at primary school.           

            “Eeleenee, I’m speaking to you!” she said.

            I was being punished for standing up for myself.  Sarah Wilkinson had lied.  She told our teacher I had ripped her crayon drawing for nothing.  I had tried to reveal the truth, but Miss Ellen had already brought out the thick leather strap from the bottom drawer of her desk, and pulled me to the front of the classroom. 

            So, I shut my mouth, bowed my head, held out my hand like Miss Ellen told me to, and waited.  My Samoan upbringing taught me to respect my elders and don’t talk back.

            Wh-tch!

            The pain was sharper.

            “Did you hear me, Eeeleenee?  I said look at me!”

            The blue carpet became a watery blur as tears overflowed from my eyes.  I was confused.  I wasn’t supposed to look elders in the eye when they were talking, especially when reprimanding me.  It was a sign of disrespect and defiance.  Yet, I was also supposed to obey my elders without question.

            Wh-tch!           

            My hand burned and started to shake uncontrollably.  My silent weeping escalated into hiccupping sobs.

            “LOOK AT ME, YOU RUDE GIRL.”

            Miss Ellen’s angry words puffed through the fringe of my hair, feeling hot on my forehead. 

            Finally, I slowly raised my head. 

            Red blotches spread along Miss Ellen’s cheeks and nose.  It reminded me of how my blood soaked into the fabric of my dad’s jersey when I tumbled off my bike and grated the skin on my legs, outside Eden Park. Miss Ellen’s was dynamite ready to explode.  Spittle from her barking snarl sprayed my tear-streaked face. 

            How could she terrify children by forcing them to watch her full-blown wrath and hate? 

            If I misbehaved in front of my elders, they gave me loud, long lectures that included common Samoan sayings - empty threats, such as “I’ll stomped on your head, you shit eater.” Sometimes, I’d feel the whack of a belt or jandal.  But never had I actually witnessed terrifying, shape-shifting rage until Miss Ellen’s strap incident. 

            Afterwards, Miss Ellen would grip my chin in her thumb and index finger, and pull my face towards hers when speaking to me.  I found it excruciatingly uncomfortable undoing the conditioning of my Samoan culture, but I didn’t want to unleash the white dragon with the fiery face again, and so, within a week I was able to make and keep eye contact without needing Miss Ellen’s ‘guidance’.  

            Then came the day I lost my prescribed glasses at school.  My dad was furious!  I sat on the floor in front of him, crying as he yelled at me.  I didn’t realise I had started staring at him until he stopped in the middle of his rant, his eyes widening in shock.

            In Samoan he said, “How dare you disrespect me and look at me like that!” 

            Whack.

***

            My birthplace is Aotearoa; it’s reclaiming its nativeness.  My roots are Samoan; distance of time between us grows.  My elders are less offended when people hold eye contact. 

            My name – Eleni - is not so hard to pronounce anymore. 

First published in 'Landfall', issue 230, in December. 2015
http://www.otago.ac.nz/press/landfall/current/otago059857.html

starry night

life

lives

one

all

connection

distant                                                             connection

connection

all

one

lives

Otoliths:  A BlogSpot of poetry I'm damn glad I stumbled across.  Not only have I come across a variety of works that are wonderful and unusual , but also, more importantly, poems that teach me. 
Otoliths is the first to publish this poem online.  The first to publish my work this year. 

http://the-otolith.blogspot.com.au/2015/01/otoliths-issue-thirty-six-contents.html