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the poet
Jonathon Medeiros teaches and learns about language on the Mokupuni of Kaua’i, where he writes about education, equity, place, and the power of curiosity to kill boredom. Jonathon's many pleasures include walking, paddling and surfing, as well as enjoying time with his brilliant wife and daughters. His poems and essays have been published by Bamboo Ridge Press, Hawaii Pacific Review, English Journal, Mythic Picnic, La Rotonde, Syncopation Literary Journal and The Hopkins Review.
the poems
Making Lei with
Brandy Nālani McDougall
Cut the grapefruit, two halves,
sugar
and then a yellow shirt,
and white shorts,
point at the horizon
and then headstand against the wall,
looking to the glass doors,
and then sit on a towel,
faded terry cloth, like buttered toast,
in the sun, on the shore,
at Kalhiwai, and then
hold the fat black cat, Willy,
heavy in your arms,
and then his hairless chin
and then also your hug
like a vice
and then 'keep writing' and then also
'that’s enough, Bette Middler sings it
better' which you mean to mean
'I love you, but stop singing' and then
'I love you, too' and then
cut the grapefruit
in half
and notice that it is pink inside
and it is mottled yellow rind
and it is on the small white plate
and the spoon is impossibly small
like you but
not like a bird or any failed simile
and then
the toast, rye, buttered,
and then also
your ashes in a bag, in my arms,
my feet in the stream, Pu’ukumu,
the water is clear, cold
like ashes in a bag in my arms,
and then the ashes mixed with water
at my ankles
up side down
headstand
smile simile
horizon
yellow
sugar spoon and
grapefruit
buttered toast
terry cloth towel
glass walls
ashes and water
sugar spoon and
Willy the cat
and then this one too
as I tie the knot:
your voice calling us
up
from the valley
from our visit there,
for a visit
4,000 Saturdays
The grudge is a weight
we pick up and choose to carry;
it is a parasite,
the needy carcass of our hopes;
it crushes us, draped over our skin
as we walk.
But we carry the grudge
happily
and with purpose
and with some kind of love
for the way it warms us,
they way it licks our ears,
the way it makes us feel … righteous,
focused,
like the energy we expend
matters because we chose it
and it is spent.
But
how many heart beats
have we wasted,
carrying the grudge?
How many do we have left
to leave it,
to stoop down,
and to pick up the weight of
I’m sorry?
And I love you?
And …
What the Sumo Says
At the honbasho,
after the shikiri, and the shiko,
after niramiai,
after the nodowa, after the oshi-zumo
and yotsu-zumo,
after the salt and the ceremony,
after the staring and
the slapping of bellies,
after the legs to the sky
and the stomping of the earth,
after the falling together
and after the falling apart,
all sumo
are asked, as the they exit the dohyo,
in Japanese, 'Why do you think
you had this outcome?'
And in English, they say
'I just do my own sumo.'
But in poetry, they say
How dare you
My body is my own
And I am the Earth
And all of the water
And the soil
And in my breath,
And in my sweat,
And in the folds of my enormous
And impossible body
Is the way
That I learned to love
So
This is the outcome
Because I can only be
This sumo right here
Publishing credits
Making Lei with Brandy Nālani McDougall: Aliquot
(Hoʻolana Publishing)
4,000 Saturdays / What the Sumo Says: exclusive first
publication by iamb