18 Apr 2015
by K. Kaimilani Leota Sellers
in poetry
Tags: daffodils, death, earth, education, life, mid-night, moonless, NaPoWriMo, nature, starless, Wordsworth
What would Wordsworth say
About today’s poetry,
About the over-saturation of words,
“Spontaneously over-flowing”
or a cry for help? In
A world burgeoning in self-deprecation
And violent human provocation
Some words sink to the bottom
And some float to the top
In dead zone books
Of undercurrents
Often called education
Where thousands of miles away
Intelligence is dictated by the few
And for the many
Where the loss of the value
for nature and
A forgotten art of pondering daffodils
In the stillness of a wild field
Is the real deficit
We are looking for.
The thoughts of half a century sway
Unsteadily in my mind
And I want to get away
From what is surely my own death throes
Of expectations
Dissipating slowly in
This mid-night hour
Starless and moonless,
Blocking out the noise that is my life
And merging into the soul of the earth
Where money no longer chains me
In that vicious cycle of measurements
In words that analyze
Haves and
Have not.
April 18, 2015
12 Apr 2015
by K. Kaimilani Leota Sellers
in poetry
Tags: earth, gardening, hands, life, Ode, spring, sprouts
How she digs deep into rich loam
absorbing the currents of earth’s hearth
in the palms of her hands,
strong and sure, wet with rain
she must guide tiny tendril sprouts
into the threshold of spring.
Mud and sweat, digging, diving into earth,
A firm grip pounding solid pole,
Driving a staff into readied amber ground
made rich with her finger-tips,
pressing softly into the warm walls of life,
her healing hands gently guiding home.
02 Apr 2015
by K. Kaimilani Leota Sellers
in poetry
Tags: chanting, earth, hair, magma, Milky Way, NaPoWriMo, navigated, ocean, Pacific roots, power, savage, sensual, strength, sun, tides, universe, waves, woman
My Pacific Island roots
flow through my hair,
An ocean-tangled savagery
that moves through me
like heightened drumbeats
sliding across soft skin, aching
wind-whipped bending wild grass,
sun-soaked and salted sands
breathing and rising with the tides.
My hair commands the Milky Way,
Spiraling Swirls of stars and comets
dancing like sea anemone in
Sensual-swelling waves
Synergy Cascading,
Powered by pride,
And chanting, Earth offering,
Absorbing heat and warmth,
Hot magma goddess force,
Mud-spattering, Ehu-streaking
Light of Fire-sweeping,
Navigated by stars and wind
my woman’s glory
is the Universe
Flowing freely.
April 2, 2015
28 Mar 2015
by K. Kaimilani Leota Sellers
in poetry
Tags: barefoot, born, childhood, coconut, earth, guava, mango, papaya, photography, Samoan, soil, trees
I was born barefoot
And learned to walk on rocks,
And hot pavement,
Stubbed my toes a lot,
And packed them with red soil
To heal in soft earth.
Tough Samoan feet
That felt hot in shoes
And didn’t fit the narrow, prissy,
Slender girl look.
“Wide!”
I said with pride,
“With rubber tips” that could
Scuffle and kick
Like the best of boys,
My feet took a beating.
But in summer,
They found the shapes of trees
With toes that gripped
The coconut, papaya, mango, guava trunks,
I was the mastermind of gathering fruit
With bulging shirt in teeth
Climbing over fences,
Pedaling bikes,
A solid, fast get-away.
I was told,
“Stay outside, your feet are dirty”
And I did.
Who wants lacy white socks that itch,
Or ugly pointed shoes that pinch?
I was born barefoot,
And was proud of it.
March 28, 2015
27 Mar 2015
by K. Kaimilani Leota Sellers
in poetry, Uncategorized
Tags: earth, fire, leaves, mind, path, photography, roots, water
Lead me over stony pebbles
And deep-rooted paths
To the sounds of the universe
Evolving
Empty words
Trailing like the tail
Of a comet
Lighting my mind on fire.
For now,
It is only the smell of the earth that matters,
Rotting leaves and dark soil
In the fragment of bark
And small things that
Have been buried awhile.
March 28, 2015
22 Feb 2015
by K. Kaimilani Leota Sellers
in poetry
Tags: acid rain, afghanistan, awakening, blood, cross, discontent, earth, forests, knowing, photography, poppies, selfhood, sickle, sleep, star, symbol, wanting, war
The fabric of nature
Woven into the texture of sound
And water
And color
And thought in knowing
There is a reason for knowing
We just don’t know why
And there is an awakening
For a journey to shape Hope
In juxtaposition
To the silence of tall mountains
In juxtaposition
To war in Afghanistan where poppies wave orange
Against bullet blue skies and wind ravaged hills
In all
That matters…
In the end…
How does the curve relate to the angle?
The cross to the star to the sickle
Symbols of fallen snow
And sunset glow in acid rain?
How does blood dry up and blow away so quickly
Like forests
While I sleep
And the thudding discontent of selfhood
Lost in wanting to be
where it matters most
in the veins of the earth
where curvature has no shape and
roots stretch north
To where the stars begin
Treading softly
In what’s been left behind
In place.
13 Jul 2014
by K. Kaimilani Leota Sellers
in love
Tags: bones, burial, death, earth, letting go, life, memories, photography, planting, roots, shelter, soil, womb
My fingers reach deep,
deep into earth’s womb,
curling round hot soil
where her pungent roots seek ground
and shelter for her rich bones
asking to be buried
In latent memories,
and warm tears,
like soft rain
to carry her home.
Karen K L Espaniola July 13, 2014
11 Jul 2014
by K. Kaimilani Leota Sellers
in poetry
Tags: deforestation, earth, forests, fracking, giving, mountains, national forests, photography, rape, rivers, Senator Ted Cruz, sun, wind
Cape Fear River, North Carolina
Our National Forests,
Earth’s forests,
Are just outside our cities,
Rivers and hills
And mountains rising up
Like they have forever,
Despite tunnels,
And traffic,
And high wires,
And cellphone towers
Running through them.
Earth still gives
As she always has,
Her dark patches of trees
Calling us into her arms
To soak in her languid waters
And breathe deep,
Her still airs quieting our souls
In a way that ringing colonial axes
For cabins and axels and population growth
Could not defeat.
But Drilling,
But Frackers Fracking.
You would mow her down
With ear splitting sounds,
And rape her
Over and over and over again
Until the puncture wounds are too great to bear,
You would force her,
Inject her,
Oozing with your toxic poisons
That can’t be washed away
Until she is broken,
But still giving,
You would take her beauty
To fuel your manhood
Until she has given it all away.
And the sun and wind,
The sun and the wind would still be free.
In response to Senator Ted Cruz–National Forests are not for sale
Karen K. L. Espaniola July 11, 2014
24 Apr 2014
by K. Kaimilani Leota Sellers
in poetry
Tags: earth, Gemini, mercury, mind, NaPoWriMo, sun, Words
A flurry of words slip
from my lips,
unbeknownst,
from my mind,
unmonitored,
an unbridled out-burst,
a hose that’s been folded,
too long held back,
too far from the earth,
too close to the sun,
This dam must be released,
Or burn.
23 Apr 2014
by K. Kaimilani Leota Sellers
in poetry
Tags: assessment, dollar bill, earth, frack, GMO, metaphor, NaPoWriMo, paradox, pollution, prefix, testing
What rain will rain is done
Every word
Every metaphor
Rooted in text,
A mental pre-fix of
culture screaming
Stop
Blind paradox
Of a kernel of corn,
A grain of wheat,
Genetically modified,
Frackin’ waterbed of human demise
And population rise
Alphabetically quantified,
Adjectival phrase of
A fish gasp, of a polar bear,
Playful on polluted land and poisoned water
Sandaled hippie tree hugging wasted
Contextual clue lost on
Raving lunatics and razzled Republican rhetoric,
Check out the context of living now,
On earth,
What more can be said,
What more can be done,
Intelligence measured with a rubber gun,
And a dollar bill.
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