By George Held
On the east end of O’ahu
there’s a seaside outcropping
of lava in the midst of which sits
a great eye-hole – formed
eons ago by molten lava tubes
during volcanic eruptions – Continue reading
Halona Blowhole
Filed under Poetry
Wild Roosters
by Jane Hall
Roosters roam the island of Kauai
feral descendants of red jungle fowl
that rode outriggers from the Marquesas,
perfect posture, each step a performance,
the epitome of the word cocky.
Feathers glazed copper and teal and inky black,
vulgar beauty of iridescence, roosters
roosters, roosters around the dumpsters,
on the tennis courts, and in the vacant lot
behind the shave ice stand. Continue reading
Filed under Poetry
Drowned
By Patrick J. Murphy
The wind came in off the plains to the town of Milan, Ohio and curled around the clapboard house of Thomas Alva Edison. It reached the walls and climbed to the eves outside the attic window. When it howled, the bed seemed to move, as if it were carrying the boy away.
“Pitt.” His older brother slept against the other sloping wall, a long shape sprawled beneath a wool blanket, hardly a comfort, barely a presence.
“Go to sleep.” Continue reading
Filed under Fiction
A Land So Flat
By Tommy Dean
Before Audrey had left for the city and the college that promised her a new kind of life, she had called her Daddy a hick. They were pretending she wasn’t leaving the next day, that her bags hadn’t been packed for weeks, that she hadn’t turned over all her flannel shirts to her mother, piling them up on the dining room table, repeating the word “Rags” over and over, as she heaped more clothes onto the pile. She’d given up her cowboy boots too, making a big show of it at her cousin’s fifteenth birthday party the month before. Her brother had taken her aside, pointing a stubby finger at her saying, “Setting the barn on fire wouldn’t be as rude, and least there was some insurance money in it.” Continue reading
Filed under Fiction
To Nica, With Love
By Laura Sweeney
In the midst of the monsoon
and the thousand year flood
my Nica nostalgia rises. Continue reading
Hawaii Pacific Review 