Hawaii,
Just the name sounds magical,
Oahu.
Oh, wahoo!
But the swell was dying down,
Not as big as days prior.
Still good enough for me.

The undulating earth,
Not fire, water.
Slow rollers
With surprising speed.
Cresting, foamy peaks
Avalanching into those clear bowl-like valleys below.

Temporary hollowness
Racing to devour the escape
As the sleek slide rides
On until the chase is up.

Barrel after barrel
For time out of mind that day
Was spent in the surf.
Great day in those crystal waters
Riding the waves of the earth.

There was no way to really describe it.
Long as I lived, I thought.

I went to Hawaii, swam in the sea.
And that's when it reminded me.

The under current swept me off my feet.
And not in some sweet delightful way.

The water rushed everywhere I didn't desire.
In my body, I felt a shameful sort of fire.

The salt water choked me in the same way,
my tears drowned in those days.

The tide was unrelenting, minutes seemed like hours.
Like those school days felt like years.

The tide kept moving and I was twelve again.
Such a sad thought on a Hawaiian weekend!

Strung together elegantly
Silken ribbons connect
smooth shells
And kukui nuts.

Though it is not vibrant orchids
Or a beautiful hibiscus
It carries their memories
Gently as the waves
Kissing the sand.

The shells remind them of
Past reminiscences
Of younger days in rustic Waimea
And delighted smiles
At Hanauma Bay,
Watching colorful fish
And gliding sea turtles.

The kukui nut
keeps them grounded together
So as not to drift apart
In heart.

He strung it around her neck
And softly whispered in her ear:
aloha aku no
*aloha mai no

America, Why I Love Her
Written by John Mitchum
Poet/Actor

You ask me why I love her? Well, give me time, and I'll explain...
Have you seen a Kansas sunset or an Arizona rain?
Have you drifted on a bayou down Louisiana way?
Have you watched the cold fog drifting over San Francisco Bay?


Have you heard a Bobwhite calling in the Carolina pines?
Or heard the bellow of a diesel in the Appalachia mines?
Does the call of Niagara thrill you when you hear her waters roar?
Do you look with awe and wonder at a Massachusetts shore...
Where men who braved a hard new world, first stepped on Plymouth Rock?
And do you think of them when you stroll along a New York City dock ?


Have you seen a snowflake drifting in the Rockies...way up high?
Have you seen the sun come blazing down from a bright Nevada sky?
Do you hail to the Columbia as she rushes to the sea...
Or bow your head at Gettysburg...in our struggle to be free?


Have you seen the mighty Tetons? ...Have you watched an eagle soar?
Have you seen the Mississippi roll along Missouri's shore?
Have you felt a chill at Michigan, when on a winters day,
Her waters rage along the shore in a thunderous display?
Does the word "Aloha"... make you warm?
Do you stare in disbelief When you see the surf come roaring in at Waimea reef?


From Alaska's gold to the Everglades...from the Rio Grande to Maine...
My heart cries out... my pulse runs fast at the might of her domain.
You ask me why I love her?... I've a million reasons why.
My beautiful America... beneath Gods' wide, wide sky.





[topp]

Our lives were of this moment…
  the wave made sure of that

Winter nineteen sixty-nine
  Waimea’s fury spat

Thirty feet and building
  the giants all had come

Their lips four stories high above
  too late to cut and run

The paddle out a nightmare
  the ride a waiting terror

The drop in looming zero-sum
  the wall the devils mirror

We made it down and set our fins
  to climb the face again

Our ears were deaf, eyes frozen wide
  once more to climb the mountain  

On top we leaned and split the crest
  last turn to surf the violence

The beach in sight, through foams delight
   —death wading through the silence

(Villanova Pennsylvania: January, 2019)
           ‘Memories Of Waimea’

Kevlar plates much lead,
  Night vision sharks,
And a ladder to ascend,
The raft pulls on a cargo ship,
The night sea rips a hand away,
In the flash-lit night sea spray,
The prowler finishes what it begun,
He disappears grasping bottom rung,
And not satisfied with only one,
His helper sinks forever to the ocean bed,
With much kevlar, and Navy lead.
                            *
A cruise ship in Bahama green blue,
If there parents only knew,
That blacktips love their children more,
When pushed off from shore,
Much drink, much youthful pride,
Scheming hearts when it's girls and guys,
Someone takes up a night time dare,
Being followed unaware,
A splash and the night green blue,
" Bye Bye"
Forever separated from party in view,
Then gliding forms, like ghosts,
Almost spectral,
Tries to swim back, disappears,
trying to board a vessel.
                 *
85 on a winters day,
With a price in Waimea Bay,
The surfers are out there,
So it's safe?,
Surfers are ****** brave!
Only up to knees,
girls stay on the beach,
Every six foot wave,
the surfer takes,
Crashes 30 feet high shore break,
A separated shoulder,
A crowd and"no swimming tape"
out of breath from sets of 5,
Once shallow,
Now a chasm to the other side,
lay behind,  float way out,
want to die without a shout,
No father on earth,
and no brethren beyond the tape,
Without love without hate,
Then something in the water,
something spectral,
" Hey bra ya alright?"
A pyscho surfer aboard his vessel.