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Mauna Loa at 7,000 Feet

In the last grove of ohia, mamane, and gray-green koa at the top of the Mauna Loa Strip Road, we met a ranger coming down. He had been hunting a feral goat that had broken through the fence. Such animals destroy the forest understory and native plants, and spread weeds that drive out the more…

Valarie

I had this dream that a river Ran beneath my bedroom window And a pretty woman With dark hair and dark skin Was swimming in the dark water below. But somehow, strangely, I wasn't In the river myself. I couldn't enter my own dream. I can't think of a damn thing to do. Paranoia really…

‘Ama’u

These thorny ferns are what Kama-pua‘a, the Pig God, looked like when he wished to disguise himself. When he took this form, he had no visible eyes but he could see, no nostrils but he could smell, no bristles but he could feel every sulfur wind that touched his reddish fronds. He looked exactly like…

Snowing Desert

Six months            later Sandra was found Murdered in a                  ditch. Lying With the blood Leaves. Scattered                        dirt Of Oregon. Four of us            fucking A cheap motel on The limes            of Van Buren.            Then we Switched. Sandra slips On the wet            tile Floor. These flakes Melt…

Incomplete Combustion

Dear Larry: Looks like I won't need to borrow the car after all: the trip to L.A. is out of the question. I didn't know a life could break down like a chemical. Salt. Plutonium. The odorless noose of carbon monoxide. Up north a few years back, a group of kids committed mass suicide in…

Kamuela

That great acacia's not growing anymore, the rats are on the limbs, the heartwood diseased, the fallen leaves show rot has replaced the long-lived green, like an emotion that cannot be recalled sufficiently. Yet it stands where it's always been, where the incredible horses graze. They seem never ridden, serene there, only combed and released…