Friday, March 14, 2025: Liam Balmeo's “Honalua”
Liam "Lee" Balmeo is an emerging poet & activist. I. You can feel it, can’t you? The ominousness present, on the sand. All around the hand that held life in its fingertips, the people in its grasp. But we know that something’s wrong, that offtone sensation of emptiness in our stomachs. The ocean and sand do not fall with the tides but follow the season’s games as clouds shelter the ones under its brow, caressing the ocean with its shadow. We smell the brine sweeter than its carcass, changed with the lips of Mother’s kiss while holding the gritty sand of pebbles spit unevenly across the ocean floor. The rocks have been turned by time and glazed with rough edges. They’ve been waiting—they’ve been longing for someone to set them free. The land and its living steer clear of this zone—but only the ones that can see it. Palm trees sway crooked in the raging winds because their limbs are removed in the form of delicate leaves; their shrubbery below has stolen the sunlight and...