By Chrys Tobey
When I was twenty, I should’ve slowed down, should’ve realized
I was having a midlife crisis, but instead I was busy running
from a bear and chasing deer. I should’ve scraped clearer words
in clearer caves for others to find. Maybe they’ll never find any of this.
Maybe you’ll never find any of this, and this shit show, this life
of mud and ice and wind is for nothing. My heart has been a pile Continue reading
Filed under Poetry
by Sati Benes Chock
She kept the T.V.
At first Jane thought that it wouldn’t be right, even though, if pressed, she didn’t feel that it was exactly wrong, either. But still. He had a wife. This hadn’t stopped her from having dinner with him, after she’d tutored his children for ten dollars an hour at his immaculate 1950s-style ranch house. The only thing out of place was a crumpled handmade quilt on the leather couch in the den. “That’s where Daddy sleeps,” whispered his son, Nate, a shy eleven-year old with spiky red hair and thick black glasses. A thrill shot through Jane, even as she pretended nonchalance. His older sister, Amanda, peered around the corner and frowned. “What are you doing in there?” she asked. It was as if she knew Jane was snooping. Continue reading
Filed under Fiction
Winner of the 2015 James Vaughan Poetry Contest. The author will read the winning poems at the Ko`olau Writers Workshop on April 9th, 2016.
by Joseph Stanton
The pandanus,
the oldest of God plants—
sporting aerial roots
as evidence of transcendence— Continue reading
Winner of the 2015 James Vaughan Poetry Contest. The author will read the winning poems at the Ko`olau Writers Workshop on April 9th, 2016.
by Joseph Stanton
In this woven orb an ending waits.
Who knew a life could have such symmetry?
A mosquito, a moth, a tiger swallowtail—
each flies a random path it thinks,
pursuing food, or sex, or sunlight Continue reading
Filed under Poetry
by James Valvis
He never minded labor, only people,
the work easy, even when difficult,
when it murdered his back and eyes.
He understood pain, the private agony
of a dirty toilet, existentialism of mornings
pumping gas or grinding auto parts
so their welding no longer showed seams. Continue reading
Filed under Poetry
Hawaii Pacific Review 