VINYL SUNDAYS

A-Track

We genuflect.
Men dressed by their wives in their Sunday best
kneel on planks of uncross.
Women pass over bread to their children
to deposit in pass-around plate
for confessional clean slate.

Samoan choir sing praises to Jewish mythology.
Tangaloa spits an eye for an eye at our irreverence
He laughs, foreseeing
my first taste of dipsomania lust
is sipping the blood of Keriso.



B-Side

After church
men smoke rollies in the carpark
their backs to the ‘No Smoking’ sign.
Women with backstabbing eyes
smile neon lipsticks
as if painted jujus can mask bullkaka.

I only sing at night because La envies me.
Once, it growled, Suga, stop stepping on my dick!
and tried to burn my voice.
My hymns now flicker
along Masina whispers.



Published in 'Ika 4' 2016

GRIPPING SAND

My feet sink into the sand

as I tramp across the tanned shores

of my grandmother’s village in Samoa.

Waves do not rush in to greet me

I have been away too long and

this slice of the Pacific Ocean

does not easily forget.

I stop and look out into the sea

pristine as the travel brochures portray

            no need for Photoshop

            no government development plans

            no colonisation

I close my eyes and wait...

The messenger wind breezes

salty words into my ears -

            You may have taken your first breath

            on the fanua of my kin, Aotearoa

            but you have neglected the umbilicus sands and waters

            where the kenese of your

            existence is rooted.

The cool breeze leaves me then

to be beaten by the sun’s rays.

I did not notice I was gripping the sand

until I felt silk granules spill from

the Va between my toes;

grains of  late yearning

slipping into a lost past.

Published in 'Ika 4' in May 2016