by Sharon Fain
Soon the longest night of the year
will bear down on these trails
near my home, a darkness
that for the ancients was like a death.
At New Grange and Stone Henge
they lit torches, waited it out. Continue reading
My Fiftieth Year in California
Filed under Poetry
The Theory of Everything
by Matthew Fairchild
The Standard Model and M-Theory
No matter how big the object, everything can be broken down into the same elements, the ones on the periodic table we had to memorize in chemistry class. Those elements are in turn created by protons, neutrons, and electrons. Protons and neutrons are made up of quarks (up, down, strange, charm, top, bottom), leptons (electron, electron neutrino, muon, muon neutrino, tau, tau neutrino), and bosons (photon, w, z, gluon, higgs, graviton). Quarks, leptons, and bosons are made up of vibrating strings attached to membranes. We know these as the most basic elements that create all matter and life in the universe. Continue reading
Filed under Nonfiction
Addiction
by Ken Tokuno
Coming of age on a farm in Sacramento was not my choice.
I spent my teen years driving tractors through dust so thick
I would emerge at the end of the day with nostrils clogged
With black grit. I would watch the sorghum seeds we planted rise
Like the soldiers sowed by Jason, knowing I would have
To fight through them all summer, being scalded by the sun. Continue reading
Filed under Poetry
Derelict Orders
by Donald Carreira Ching
I used to count the cars like the next one would be the last one, but there’s
really no point. There’s always another one abandoned on Dump Road, on the side of the highway near the military base, or at the beach park. If I troll along Kamehameha Highway near the pier, I’ll usually find at least one just before the road curves toward the waterfront homes that look out onto the sandbar, Ahu O Laka. Continue reading
Another Immigrant Story
by Holly Karapetkova
In the 1980s you were a movie star in a small Eastern European country. You played a prince, an attendant lord, and other roles of note. We watch them on YouTube. “That’s me,” you say, though it really isn’t—not anymore. You have to point yourself out because none of us can recognize you, the muted color of 30 years passing. On screen you watch the war escalate. Continue reading
Filed under Nonfiction
Hawaii Pacific Review 