I met Mother Taro once,

        She is an angel you know

I saw her in the greenery of
John Pia's Taro Patch.

She dawned the past, the present
and the future
More plant than woman,
and yet more root than angel wing--
Though her heart shaped wings
Repelled water as well
as any albatross or nene.
A rare bird in spirit.

She shared her plight to me
Of this modern time,
Watching the changes
In the faces of human kind

She remembers being a Goddess
And providing for all the people
In a time where she
traveled with the people
Over waters near and far
In double hulled canoe
To share her spirit
With new families.

And now, she feels like a myth
Told and retold by the elders
Alive more in the memories
And less on the land.

As she spoke, the message
Became more and more clear.
When might and power and greed and money
Seem of more value than
Root, wing, earth and pluck
We must take the time,

take the time

To tend each keiki and tend with care
So they may multiply
In healthy soil, water and air

So We the Living
Can live into eternity
For the winds of time
Will spite the might,
She said.
Seize this time
Seize this  day,
Seize this moment
to tend
We the Living.

Your kindness
a sunflower
whose many seeds
sustain the sparrow's
song of joy
and rest assured
do gorgeously
germinate in
thin-hulled souls
the soil is ripe
love yearns
to be reborn.

They call it the Tall-Ship Pier, because
It hasn’t been used since then,
Its timbers rotted and barnacled,
And black since I don’t know when.
The storms it’s weathered have taken some,
You can’t reach it from the beach,
A hundred yards of its length have gone
The rest is stark at the breach.

But nobody goes there anymore
There’s not much left of the town,
Just a couple of old stone walls
The rest is tumbling down,
It sits forever beyond the Point
Where the sailing ships came in,
A crumbling wreck of years gone by
With a hint of forgotten sin.

The winter storms were a testing time,
The seas flooded over the pier,
The ships sat out in the bay, in line
Rode out, this time of the year,
Til when a black-hulled barquentine
Came in with a Dutch command,
The Captain, Herman van der Brouw
In charge of the ‘Amsterdam’.

They tied her up to the bollards, just
As a storm was coming in,
A woman stood on the quarter-deck
And the lines in her face were grim:
‘You said we’d head to Jakarta,
Not to this god-forsaken place!’
‘I told you, stay in your cabin,’
Was the reply, with little grace.

The Captain turned to the bosun,
‘Make her secure, but down below,
She’s not to come on the deck again
While still in the port, you know!’
The woman struggled, was taken down
But she flung a curse at his head,
‘Your time is limited, van der Brouw,
When Dirk finds out, you’re dead!’

The wind blew up and the storm came in
And the sea began to swell,
The sky was black and the ‘Amsterdam’
Would grind as it rose and fell,
It tore the bollard away from the pier
At the stern end of the barque,
Then slowly swung from the prow out wide
Side-on to the waves, an arc.

It kept on swinging around until
It crashed right into the pier,
Taking a section out with all
The cabins, back at the rear,
The wind was howling around the bow
As the barque sank low at the stern,
A voice screamed, ‘Get me the hell from here,
Or van der Brouw, you’ll burn!’

The crew were swept off the quarter deck
Were drowned right there to a man,
While van der Brouw had leapt to the pier,
The part that continued to stand,
The woman rose to the surface for
One moment more in the storm,
And screamed from the top of a breaking wave,
‘You’ll wish you’d never been born!’

They found him lashed to the planking
After a day or so of dread,
His eyes were staring, his face was white
He was just as surely dead,
But something curious came to pass
As they took his corpse ashore
The flesh on his hands was burned and black
With his fingers shaped like a claw.

And she, her body was swept on out
For she’s not been found ‘til now,
And all that’s left of the sailing ship
Is the figure, set on the prow,
A woman, carved as a figurehead
That creaks and groans in a storm,
And seems to mutter against the pier,
‘You’ll wish you’d never been born!’

David Lewis Paget

times like this, the plenary moon
  tonight wearing many faces,

the white-washed truant at bay
    white-hulled still, the brim of the sky
to a full, on such a bright night leaving a trace
   of say, prongs of fire on the kiln

the skin the soft breeze molests with a chill
flung from pinecone – the blackened spires of the
very heart of flame and the mullioned wood that understands
  what the heat of placeness mints underneath
  our skin – what silence remains a translation when the smoldering
  remains are bitten repeatedly, aureoled in the moment of vital meaning.

we hear its threat, retained in clock-whirs
like a primordial word or the fluting of  light’s bendable
   rondure harnessing a truth we let in.

I fail behind the walled-up lip of laughter
because the weight of passing
is heavy on my back – like a bough dragged
  by rainwater, or sound elected to drown:
the smell of poinsettia assaults,
lifting its slaughter against Kiltepan and Ambuklao,
  past mountains lulled to sleep: the moon sleuthing
  like a well-oiled machine.  what do you hear?

  we are aware of its full absence,
like that of our undulation after a fall,
  or the wild sibilance of breath trying  to  utter something,
  going back home with a song in between teeth,
    without words.

I had too much,
Swirling in a bar,
Swells after swalley,
My girlfriends gone
And I, lost, alone with
Familiar strangers.

They circled me,
Paddling, soles holey,
Rafting under rafters,
My red hair drawing
Them in, motley moths
To a flame, locks lit by ****
And glinting with flit of glass
In peat drub smoking pub.

One brave soldier, sailed
On over and our glaze eyes
Danced, deftly avoided any
Glance as we swayed, silent,
His breath was dank, of sea,
Moist and salty on raw flesh,
I could nae help but wake from
Dream by the scent of only you,
But it wasn't you dreamful laddie,
In shelled ears some brigand shot,
Sprayed a cold loss awakening,
His words, nothings, oak aged,
I felt loudly drowning, caught
In a corner of rusted, hulled
Ship now sinking, he threw
Himself a line and I saved
My soul, a life preserved
By a leaving, breaching
Heavy waves, bobbing
Into the out of doors.

I’m afraid of the ocean when its waves rush forward,
its translucent arms wrapping around the impressions of my feet..

The ocean is a mother giving birth,
life surging forward and then receding in the swirls of salt and sun.

Measureless
Its belly has captured the souls of sailors and broken ships.
Ghosts drag on the bottom floor choking on their entrails.

A 15th century wood-hulled ship is their playground,
And they gnaw on the golden coins that flutter down onto each floor
as the wood shrivels with the weight of plankton.

She is the undertow
And she is the rip current.
She surrounds us
And we will never escape her.

We are in a locomotive television.
Our head is heavy of the phosphors.
Glitch spills on our tongue.
Vases are going off the rails, blue cells, sick berries.
Endlessly in speed, our hands off the wheel.
Rotten, hulled in our own battling skin,
discordantly beaten throughout our membrane.
Insane, swiped under stumps.
Blackened spew forked our third eye blind.
Hooked to the ***** of pills murmuring us to keep calm.
Dying inside trying, can’t walk in the open
because it is already too late.
Shredded to worn, almost choking in the swarming
dead gore germs from our own mouths.
Our house has become a wolf hole.
Feasting on cold bodies blue,
eating the faces off of the unmindful.
Our feet in the gruel of grey maggots, black cadavers
and soft sad tissues.
We are tricked, taken for a ride whenever we are to transpire tiredness from this horrid immoral reality.
Nutmeg scattered on our nerves.
We are too close to the television, our hair roots are dull.
Tangles sea coral through our head.
Witnessing our own self into the suction to not turn it off.
We are in a locomotive television

Keep your kids away
from the  feathered rat.
That mangy, tarry bird,
living off their scraps.
That carrier of disease,
protruding as a cyst.
Its mangled talon clenched,
a red and permanent fist.

Iron hulled intruders.
Objective mystery.
Walking a confident strut,
name marred by history.
And is it not a pity?
most will not see,
an oily rainbow as it turns its neck,
and overlook a granite diplomacy.

Is it not something to admire?
Unique confidence?
At the feet of the bread-man,
only intransigence.
With ideals ignored,
can they not behold its spirit?
When a grey bird remains,
Why do I see its merit?

How harmonious the amber creeks,
Rocking smoothly from mine chair,
Sipping wormwood, mercury and jupiter tea,
Ambrosial be the air watched from west the shores

Found I, him when my years be only few,
Brooding, betwixt toil and melancholy curses,
One whispers, the other answers,
But, knowing not the suffering be here

‘And, I struck deep his heart fitting proper a jester,
Secrets mine loyal is laughter,
O’ how sweet the mind on Elysian Fields,
Yet divine his despair, so sad, so fresh

O love, I die in your star filled skies,
A sun jewel sinking on velvet drapes,
Dulcet my lonely vapoured song,
Dying, dying, dying

A kiss after death, rotting upward from the netherworld,
O Death, O sweet, wilt thous know immortal passion,
Before pocket and pride?
Drunk of absinth, through hazed did ye love thee?

Mercury sparkles in pools below the chair,
And mine fancies be sky glow worms pulsing near,
Cave hulled labyrinths of memories time passed,
His soul rose into mine blood

I loved thee weaving golden in rocking chair,
Dancing with warm Nile winds,
Flanking sky dragons after sun sparkles,
O he thought heart diseased of loves adoration

Improper the vex was touted, time precious before thee
Of fifty I must be, with magick death and lust I shall be,
And thine so effect lives on in me, a mere trifle ye,
His pastime, dreaming of the skies to be

And still a secret dreaming sweetness in the sea,
He looked upon mine crown of Tao and gold in glee,
Mystics glory in a bed of moonlight death,
Found I, an angel mused he, to call thee fooled

Dreamed I, none be spring, and summer neither more,
And thorned a new crown, the fool his winter dawn,
His claw deep a finger bled, his glory shadowy form,
So, dearest, thou art thy likeness wise dead cold

His darkness uttering shadows, beautiful with thee,
My darkened ways, take Ravens wings ascend yee who read,
Love be, no single tear, yet binds mercuries silver rivers near,
The old amber chair rocked to and fro, grey her hair,

Mortal hands weaved, love runs silver

── whence ever death be near

© Arnay Rumens 2015

Green Coleman lanterns hung over the water , craving the humid night , nocturnal creatures bathed in the artificial lights ....
The metronomic crash of breakers on the aluminum hulled vessel , baiting hooks and tying gear by flashlight or sheer memory .. Horned Owls , Killdeer and Whippoorwills filled the dark night with haunting songs , the crash of bass and topwater shellcrackers would chill the blood for a moment , cause you to breathe in deep  , exhale out loud .... The aroma of lake water , insect repellent and cigar smoke , chewing on a plug of Bloodhound , strained eyes concentrating on nothing but that bobber , waiting on that tasty fish to take it and run ....
Working your piece of the lake till the early morning Sun ....

I feel her on my skin
Her eyes piercing my walls
Her talons scratching my wrists
Her lips caressing my neck
Her arm is wrapped around me
Her hair strangles me
Her fangs dig into my soul
Her desire engulfing me
Her urges rising inside me
I am hulled in her sweet bliss
Her scent fills my nostrils
As I ******* blood
And embrace the void I created.

And she
Leaves me alone.
Only to return
Tomorrow

I once had a great friend in my childhood years
Back when my world was two blocks wide
A wise owl, hulled in a cloak of gray feathers
Tainted innocence that once shone like snow.

One day, she called me to meet her again,
But all that I could find was a dying bird,
A being closer to death than life itself.
A friend that had only one last wish.

To share her conscience.
To preserve her knowledge.

I foolishly accepted her humble request,
Fully aware of the consequences it brought,
Foolishly waiting to carry her learnings in me,
But shocked to received far more than knowledge.

Realization.

Realization is a funny thing.
For some, it is power or fulfillment.
But if ignorance is bliss,
Then I have been cursed.

I never played much before,
Until I was given a blade,
Playing the knife game every day,
To feel the cool edge inside my skin.
It was
Exhilarating.

Like the sound of breaking bones,
Noise that invades my mind,
Like a broken record,
Screaming out its elegy.

I have been smothered.
Between the weight of living
And the weight of realization.

Realization is not a destination.
Realization is the end.
And beyond that
There's no beginning.

In lee of the Ash
'twould be me
hiding in trees.
bare arms held high.
raw from rubbing the bark.

breath a ragged whisper,
the language of dead leaves

lingnen umbrellas once shadow makers now of the dark

encased in abandoned shade,
stability is a fabled illusion

colours of autumn fade.
forms become skeleton.
dirt is fed.

earthen daydreams corrode,
fertile nightmares,
demons grow in place of daisies

their eyes are hungry in a barren place until the ash buds swell

dried petals melt to gravity,
possess my naked frame

under the low sun after dewy drapes lift.
green blessings distract

undulating bodies,
supplication of sweet release

'tis what demon desires and to have must part with pomegranate

the seeds of damnation,
lament dearest Persephone,
your cry shall reign all dominion

a Bentham call for the utility that the wood be of seasons

colors of autumn fade,
forms become skeleton,
hello death's wintry mistress

colours of spring wait.
Morbid redress

leaving hulled seed a heliotrope with skying ambition.
Brethren in tumultuous glory.

Bask eternal in tumultuous glory.

The carcass of subway walls brick paved ways foreign tongues the hulled out ribs of a train car drenched in scents unfamiliar:

You no longer know what you want.
What you want, you can not have it.

Feeling so numb
Isnide an empty skull
Thoughts drum
        Rat-at-tat-tat  
Body shucked and hulled
Just the inside, a soul
Remains to cull
Processing as a whole
The inner realm in full
Is not always so fun

This evenly dispersed cloud fills the memory of rock
Hulled out by great machines in decades past
A haunting memorial to a past life in layers of mineral.
Oh! And now the sun quickens
From some unknown corner of the world--
It excites the fog
With a tone of brilliant urgency.
But I feel the fog resist,
Maintaining its:
“I am here now, only here, and only now”.
The birds pluck and pull at the corners of the shroud
With quick lyric bouts,
But how to awake the sleeping beast of a cloud
When it has rested so calmly,
So transcendently,
Upon the silent waters
Of the quarry.


At last,
All in an instant,
It resigns to the harmony songs of the birds
And the brilliant shine of the sun,
And it rises and quickens over the water --
A gentle exodus.
And as it goes,
I feel it kiss my cheeks
With a fine dusting of mist,
Like a last great exhale.

God was dead
Or maybe God took a sick day

I'm going to take this love
This love, which I have poured out into paintings of bouquets,
As if my head was fragile,
Maybe if I let too much sun in, it would melt
So I'm going to take this love
All fluid and slippery
I'm going to save it for later

We skipped invocation
Or maybe we forgot or maybe we just knew
He wasn't coming

On the incredibly biased assumption that He is alive and real in the first place,
Steadfast stubbornness and ignorance,
Failure and grief combined
Have led me to believe that he doesn't give a rat's tail
His rat's tail
His creature

Your necklace...
Reflected stage lights in a way I don't think I can picture
Created wavelengths that flow in all the right directions
Your necklace meets my eyes unlike anything I may have considered
Your voice rides its brilliance and softly balances just inside my ears

He's not with us

She didn't cry in the theater
The sound would have echoed, her mascara would have run
Most undignified
So she went to the bathroom,
Hulled up, all lonely
Undignified doesn't begin to describe it
She lost herself, among the seats and the people she couldn't see against the lights
Among the eyeliner and the uncomfortable dress and the fake nails

He wasn't fair,
Or he was looking the other way
Or he was just wrong
I wanted to believe that he makes no mistakes,
But all the anecdotes, all the crying little girls who grow up to be crying young mothers over their crying children
God wasn't there.

earth wakes like a blinking marble
worm cake
ravine of ravenous hunger
breathing bowl of fruit
and black hole cauldron
of spit and sediment
where life grows like debt

disembodied skyward souls
who's haloed ground
a funeral coif
of etched intaglio grim headstones
that remain arcane symbols
of refuse underworlds
sunken under black beds
shaped like centuries of tragedy
in moldering graves
and dusty trailer park archaeologies

cosmologies eclipse
open pleasures and sultry winds
that form charades of architype golden eyes
impregnating us with dreams
like animated tarot cards
while body-caged man-o-spheres
on apocalyptic mountain sides
crawl and claw in endless nights to thrive
with every breath and squalid gasp
                                *
we propel ourselves through this life
by sacrificing the present for the future
in arduous labors of discord
and glowering autopsies
of smoke & blood
until we remain
unable to live with ourselves

i vaguely remember
traveling disembodied
like a new sun
past empty hulled tenements
where the living dead
perform soap opera cameos
as sliding doors
open and shut
like switchblades
on withered clanking subways
of shuffling bones
all the way to Hades

time bruised and beaten
bedlam of age
we each fall forgotten
grey as pulping zombies
shuttering downwards
from primordial nuclides
of contagion and death

gossiping Doppelgangers
on tesseract winds
witnessed energized prodigies
teaching the dead to construct dreams
with drum stick rhythms
and flutes of savage craving
in meta whirls
that mobilize astral spitfires
faster than tachyons
in a forever extravagant next world
monster infinity