Two Poems by Rick Lupert "Land" and "At the Nutridge Luau"

By

Los Angeles poet Rick Lupert has been involved with poetry since 1990.  He is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, and he created Poetry Super Highway and hosts the weekly Virtual Cobalt Cafe series. He’s authored 25 collections of poetry, including “God Wrestler” and “The Tokyo-Van Nuys Express”, and edited  “A Poet’s Siddur”, “A Poet’s Haggadah”, the Noir anthology “The Night Goes on All Night.” and “Ekphrastia Gone Wild” under his imprint Ain’t Got No Press. He works as a music teacher and graphic designer for anyone who would like to help pay his mortgage.


Land

We are leaving 32000 feet behind

for space below these clouds.


All I see is ocean but the pilot

is confident we are a half hour away


from Daniel K. Inouye International Airport

where our luggage and a SpeediShuttle await.


I didn’t pay extra for the lei greeting

as it seemed gratuitous and there


are numerous luaus in our future.

Finally one of the islands appears


to the left of the plane. Molokai –

evidence this whole thing isn’t a dream.


If we time it right we could be

eaten by a volcano.


(From the forthcoming collection “I am not Writing a Book of Poems in Hawaii.”)


At the Nutridge Luau


I miss the intro because I’m

already on the other side of the fence

in the bathroom.


The only rule is to

have a good time.


If we break the rule

we get a time out.


But their time out consists

of a million dollar view

and a beverage.


Lua means bathroom.

Luau means party.

It’s different.


We’re on the youngest land

on the island


They keep growing the king’s crop

of sweet potato.


This is where chocolate covered

macadamia nuts come from.

Not just this island, but this farm.


We’re going to get our kid a virgin.

Context is everything.


Flower in the left ear taken

Flower in the right available

Flower in both confused


David keeps pulling fruits and

nuts out of his pocket


Are those huge avocados

in his pocket or is he just...

…Family show, family show.


Jude isn’t so good with the spear throwing.

The guide tells us not to worry.

Gatherers are important too.


The rock game

is, suspiciously, a lot like

people throwing rocks

at each other.


The bigger the flower

The more desirable you are.

Addie’s blocks out the sun.

I get a dilapidated petal situation

with a lone stamen reaching for eternity.


We see the burn marks

on the hands and feet of

the fire dancer.

This is not a drill.


For some reason the whole experience

ends with YMCA and the Electric Slide


On the way home

Ho Ju wants us to raise our hands

if we’re not here.


(From the forthcoming collection “I am not Writing a Book of Poems in Hawaii.”)


© 2022 Rick Lupert




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Kevin Patrick Sullivan's poems "Camels" and "Surviving the 405 Long Beach Freeway and the Process to Cardiac Clearance"

By
Image
  Kevin Patrick Sullivan’s books include, First Sight, The Space Between Things , Unimpaired and a number of chapbooks .  His poems are in Solo , Hummingbird , Askew , Lummox , Miramar , and Spillway among  other journals and anthologies. He Co-Founded and ran Corners of the Mouth at Linnaea’s Café, a monthly of featured and open readings for 35 years, Co-editor of Corners of the Mouth A Celebration of Thirty Years at the Annual San Luis Obispo Poetry Festival. Poet Laureate Emeritus of San Luis Obispo and the Co-founder/Curator of the Annual San Luis Obispo Poetry Festival since 1984. Camels Three legs Two humps One pyramid shaped And two flat heads What a wicked sense of humor One hump or two The sand man has You barely notice his red eyes Guiding you through this desert Of sleep this daydream Of travel                      *after the intaglio by Anne Jenkins   ...
Read more

Call For Submissions: Poetry, Essays, Fiction, and Art

By
Image
Good morning! I hope your 2022 is going better than your 2021, 2020, etc. After two years of what feels like a standstill, the world is moving forward, and in many cases, taking the opportunity to travel to places and countries never before visited, or imagined. Dashboard Horus wants to showcase your best travel poetry, fiction, essays, and art. It can be a photo of the Eiffel Tower, a story about traveling to Mars, or a poem about a train ride to Kyoto. Real, or imagined. We accept submissions on a rolling basis and will nominate for Pushcart, and Best of The Net. Guidelines Note: historically, travel writing comes with social commentary (think Joseph Campbell, or Jonathan Swift). However, any writing that contains racist tropes, hate speech, or a whiff of totalitarian leanings will NOT be considered for publication.  Send your submissions to: marielecrivainpd@gmail.com. Poetry: Two poems, no more than 100 lines combined. We accept all poetry forms, and experimental forms are alw...
Read more

Thursday, April 4, 2023: Two poems and artwork by Ann Tweedy

By
Image
Ann Tweedy's first full-length book, The Body's Alphabet , was published by Headmistress Press in 2016. It earned a Bisexual Book Award in Poetry and was also a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award and for a Golden Crown Literary Society Award. Ann also has published three chapbooks, Beleaguered Oases, White Out , and A Registry of Survival . Her poems have appeared in R attle, Literary Mama, Clackamas Literary Review, Naugatuck River Review , and many other places, and she has been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes and two Best of the NetAwards. A law professor by day, Ann has devoted her career to serving Native Tribes. She currently teaches at University of South Dakota Knudson School of Law. Read more about her at www.anntweedy.com. Axis I remember how it was to be strung along a highway that held all my aspirations– for fifteen years rooted at different points in that zooming, crawling, 1,400-mile frenzy, always within an easy drive to the magnificent, unthinkable coast....
Read more