I’ve got fifteen years tied in knots
of green and brown and I have
decided that it is time for a change
of scenery. So I climb onto the roof
and pretend I am a chimney, spewing
smoke of blue and grey and lung cancer and
voggy Hilo mornings. A helicopter
circles overhead at an altitude of 805 feet, its
searchlight catching the neighborhood
lying spread-eagled on the living room
floor, brutally desecrated and left
bare-bones to die. I am a catalyst,
an instigator, a cynic with a palm tree.
Today I read an atlas and find
naught but “A Hui Hou” scrawled across
the pages in black pen. I burn the
book, the bridge, and the old tires in
the backyard.

On Saturday it rained and the floodwaters
took my bicycle.

Sometimes I sit by the roadside reading
Bukowski with hibiscus in my hair and
Indiana in my eyes. Hunting dogs
clash with rescue dogs at the house
with the stop sign. The moon falls
from the sky and engulfs the mynah
birds and the plague. The floodwaters
recede and leave a jigsaw puzzle
on the slopes of Mauna Kea. “I am not
afraid,” I say, “for I am only gravel.”
I play the eight-bar blues on Fortieth
and sing songs of drugs and missed
connections. I am hit by a truck and
a little gold car, but I proclaim myself
immortal as I am flattened to the pavement.
I am the Ki’i Pohaku beatnik, and
I write of nature and nurture and
the never-ending rain.

Someone has painted my walls blue
and my hands grey. So I pack my suitcase
and run down the highway for
seven thousand miles and all I see
are mistakenly-numbered houses and
blank maps and dead neighbors
from families I used to know.

There are torrents of rain now,
forming puddles in the forest.
I know the reason. It is twelve
in the morning.

The neighborhood grows obscure.
We are demolished.

the weight of seven
hummingbirds -- 21 grams --
is what leaves the body
after death

on that hummingbird breath
the soul leaves
a wispering whisper
of seven tiny, winged cavatinas

being sung back
and singing themselves
forward
into the chorus

to enter again
a melody -- in
the Eye Of God

shimmering
iridescent
wings beating
the rhythm of Love



c. 2018 Roberta Compton Rainwater

Her perfume smelled of cheap Musk,
      tobacco and passion flowers,
the scent of betrayal lingered
         long after she had retreated

You look like poetry walking
The most beautiful kind about the summer time and expensive wine

I wish I could write the way your body felt against mine using your textured tongue to stop time

All your ugly turns to delicate words from lips that takes turns on my hip bones then burns a novel into my skin

I wish I could share your story like one before bedtime as a child
Before my soul became wild like the flowers you shower me in

Your love makes me forget every part I wish I couldn't feel like a healer in the body of a king

I wish I could use each stanza of your mind to thank you for every time that you gave me a reason to breathe