classroom crush

My classes are intoxicated
with thoughts of you
can't hear the teacher
cause i'm dreaming
about what we could do
not in terms sexual things
(although those aren't ruled out :)
but just the questions
I heard you ask
I heard me ask
in my head
and stifle my heart
to say
does this have to matter
what she says
yet she is judge

My classes are drunk
with standards
i don't want to jump
when she says how high
i'd rather sink
in my chair
as my mind knows
how oppressive she is
she weighs us with
guilt about truths
on what is right
what is wrong
just sink me
til i'm invisible
in her game
and if possible,
you'd be the other one
invisible too.

I hope you don't mind
that i'm spending my time
thinking of you
and the possibilities
of our thoughts.

one among many

tell me all you can do
is tell the authorities
but who are the authorities
but people who run the game
that hurts people for pay
for order
for progress.

they have rules in which
questions i have
poke at their
hypocrisies
and they have no answer.

but this is the law
this is the path of justice
i don't like their game
i would fall down the cracks
just to tear down their walls
with my nails

the emperor has no clothes on
cause he's been fucking us this whole time

dream about apo*

in my dream
i was talking to my grandma
she was worried
(now realize
my grandma has passed
to the other side).
But i heard her
worries.
i looked across the street
and saw my grandpa
(now realize
my grandpa died
when I was 'round 2).
and i looked close
to see if it was him
under the hat
sitting across the street
he waved and said hello
and send me a thought message
for my grandma
whereever she feels safe
he is there.
i told grandma.
she leaned back.

there was a phoenix
at the moment
i was telling
the bird was flitting
its wings.
then
when she leaned
the bird fell flat
on the ground

the phoenix
is a bird that rises
from the ashes.
maybe my grandma
was roaming the house
worried 'bout somethin
but i hope
she heard grandpa's message
and went to other realm.

*ilocano for grandma

to my teacher: never silenced

my umbilical
severed
cut my tongue
bashed my brain
took them out
when the bullet
insane
them workers of the man
numb the pain
so cut out the wound
that piece of pain
that spoke truth
in the school
reminding youth
that their pain
is not out of the blue
but truth
we feel
cause we
spiritual
beings
connected to all things
near and far
and them laborers for the man
want to act like we caught
in little boxes
musuem objects
they charge at
the door of the house
they take entrance fees
in order to show
our tricks
our feats

my wounded teachers
dared to speak
in straight jackets
of academics
and they cried
when they lectured
tongue of ancestors
brothers and sisters
continents away
waiting that she
will connect our fire here
to connect their fires there
and burn down
the house
of the man

cutting free

I am tired of their dream
tired to putting my body
to work in their machine
tired of their lies
they try to push behind
ear drums thumping
to heart beats bumping
PTSD running through
my veins
cause their words
return back to the logic
of carcasses as profit
and they hide behind
their books and degreed looks
pretend what they have to say
is something cause its lots
of specks on a page
but just blah blah blah
something that don't mean shit
except they have their name
written on some electronic space
gated with authenticated sign in log ins
locked in knowledge
don't ask me to review your paper
i don't understand what you mean
when you talk about helping systems
to improve military machines
to crack the code of movements
speaking up on electronic space
you think you can track us
but our knowledge cannot be reclaimed
cause you stand on stilts of shame
cannot even touch the ground
cause so long you've erased
any sense of faith
of freedom

What is strength?

What is strength?
To look inside the self
where there is a gap
between happiness
and what I'm leading my life for.

Contradictions
displacement
like lands being slipped from underneath
due to programming
seeking something
more than I have

and I've scratched this now
Dug up this present
in order to build a ladder
out of what I know
to be in that bright white
called success
out of this ghetto.

But little do I know
I've dug up the bones of my ancestors
and their fragments litter homelands
so that their spirits haunt our bodies
stealing our spirits
so we are empty and epileptic
Because we have left them
empty and desecrated
They died the same deaths
we do now
But at faster rates
And they do this haunting
because they guard us from the graves
Wanting us to wake up
from the dream
of disconnection

Piko, pusod, puseg, the gut
Umbilical that connected us
As we traversed the place
we now call Pacific
We sailed from island to island
trusting our intuition
that by reading the currents
the language of birds
the talk of the water
the eyes of the stars and the sun
we would find our way
trust that each lifetime
is just a step toward something
And our ability to remember
is what lives on
in collective memories that generate
layers on a spinning wheel
thrown out as seeds
from the center.
We floated, landed and dug deep our roots
in different worlds
connecting them
with invisible connections
piko, pusod, puseg, this gut

What is strength?
But to remember that which has been severed.
To study the wounds of the cut
and understand the ridges of the knife
the tear of the flesh
to understand their weapons
so we may come back with our own healing
to ensure that weapon no longer exists.
To teach future generations
medicine of our own knowledge
that sense
to be reconnected
to our insides, because it is our compass
To determine the journey
into what is made black
what is made bleeding
what is made fearful

That is the strength
to feel the burning in one's heart
that it ignites the eyes to tears
To express that something has gone imbalanced
And that you have a medicine for it.

That is strength.

Report Back from Turtle Island

The land called Aztlan
the land of many tribes
Genocide by the whitened settler,
soldier
Many men taught to see the land
and body
as objects
scalped, raped the people
of the land
called Aztlan
the land of many tribes
who named their place
by listening to the geography
of her
in the mountain of silent strength
in the gurgle of the river
in the whisper of the wind
in the tears of the rain

Rightly so,
they cried and still do
when scalps and bodies
named by those
who saw worth in medallion coins
buy and sell according to the names
of those engraved
on coins and dollar bills
the priests of the church
called Bank
Genealogy trace to London, Paris, Lisboa
Centers of western nations
that bought and sold
Aztlan, and many named lands from
Spanish, French, Dutch, English
Birthed a memory of empty white soul
to be a broker who bought and sold
islands of Philippines, Guam, Puerto rico, Samoa
because of arrogance of blank faces
sold their color for shillings.
that monetary wealth brings
the nerve to steal this land
called Ka Pae Aina o Hawaii Nei
This land called Ka Pae Aina o Hawaii Nei

You think the past is in the past?
Well what you think
when this land crawling with empty bodies hungry
equate bodies and lands
according to how much money they make
for holes in pockets
festering soul wound black like the Gulf.
Try to teach children of Aztlan
the land of many names
the lands of people across the sea
bleeding
taught to worship their God in the church called Bank
We only literate in the texts of dollar bills and coins
To numb our bodies raped ancestor cell, spirit,
Trail behind us as we walk like cattle on conveyer belt
toward the machine called war
machine called tourism
machine called empire
Selling your skulls and bodies according to dollar bills and coins
Our bodies working to the old and new plantation
Brown people of the land
Brown people of the sea
Wake up
Tell me, how you get free?

In dig in us

I remember you
But do you remember me?
I admit
that I only knew
when I read the text of you
submitted under the iron fist
of conquistadors
who you thought was a god returned
from the place you assumed
but he had changed
he swallowed bodies
and spit up regurgitation
of your bones, your flesh, your thoughts
into the likeness of his order
and that is how i read you
that is how i remember you.

brown girl
indigenous face
fuckable body
but not loveable enough
to struggle
cause i walk in museums,
archives, libraries
looking for ways to build a bridge
to the memory i have
to the memory you have
cause i remember

there was a ship
and i was a slave
brown girl
indigenous face
fuckable body
but not loveable enough
to spare me
as warriors saw me
as traitor
and as the battle ensued
you did not see me
but only as shattered porcelain
taken off the galleon
and decayed upon
acapulco shores.

how come
when we fight
through the words
of our masters
we can only remember
the time when they
demarcated our identities
according to our skin tones
the shape of our nose
the slant of our eyes?

how come
when we fight
through the words
of our masters
the value of our spit and speech
is commodified
to the amount of people
we gather as we bank knowledge
into the empty vessels of
masses' minds?

how come
when we fight
through the words
of our masters
you do not hear
the words of sisters and children
who speak in silence
who speak in the language
of bodies that cower
of bodies that shake
underneath the power
of brothers who want to invoke
power of warriors
who protected borders
when across those borders
once you sold bodies
of women, feathers, slaves, gold,
for iron, power, canon, and dreams
of empire
yourself.

i remember you
but do you remember me?
brown girl
indigenous face
fuckable body
asian eyes
but speak spanish
black hair
kinky at the ends
where do I come from?
from the sperm of conquistodors
that splattered across
manila acapulco terrain
ejaculated
swallowed
like blood
when fist hits mouth
silenced by
mestizo hands
of husband, father, brother, uncle
silenced as emasculated
commodified power
empowers you
into de-emasculated poverty
rape the body
to control some kind of terrain again
to enter into lands you have been forbidden
because you are brown
indigenous face
traces of ancestors fucked
by capital wielding conquistadors
injected into minds
to inject their penises
into local lands.
impregnate and forced birth
of monumental histories
to feed so called
empty hungry minds
like the land we have forgotten
has a voice
has a mind
has a way of speaking
although it is silent
like languages of women and children.

sovereignty

sovereignty
born somewhere absent of ancestry
but only in my nationalist mind
where i constrict pre-colonial globalization
to the confines
of eurocentric carving up of the face of the earth
southeast asia, is beneath east asia,
micronesia, melanesia, polynesia
racialized groupings according to skin tones
judged by racist standards of euro american industrialists,
missionaries that drink the blood of savages
as vampires sent down from apocalyptic planets.

sovereignty
i seek to self-determine the mystery
of who my ancestors were
navigators, tattooed, marauding, pirates,
lovers, writers, spoken word orators,
who read the ocean like text
who read the birds like song
who read the clouds like film
who read one another like dance
literate in the manifesting of life
yet betrayed by those amazed
at our intellectual riches
desire for empire through bartered iron
sold bodies of slaves and women
yet our visions undocumented
as not worthy: pagan
in the minds of hordes coming from
baroque cathedrals
stifled magic into the dark tortured souls
where scientific categories
sliced and fragmented beauty
in patriarchal chambers

sovereignty
daughter of migrants
deterritorialized identity
that follows like an umbilical
severed,
but as it laid in the dry soil
tears of lonesome grandfather
sprouted lineage in plantation field
and so we began as diaspora
settler, laborer, invader, dreamer, builder
people of the daga
people of the soil
weaving sugar cane stalks with machetes
upon lands of kanaka maoli
whose ghosts roam with measles and
small pox,
and together, we meet
as christianlized heathens
yet we see the soil as life
all we have.
we have this burning memory of pain
but afraid to explain
cause what will the other think?
when we expose our complicit relation
to that which uprooted us?

sovereignty
my love of land
cannot be bound
like my love for you
who dwells everywhere.
in everyone
only if we could always
be in the state of mind
where we re-imagine what it means
to be our own, but in relation
to each other.
not confined to dominant categories
not confined to agendas of someone else's dreams
but realize our ability to manifest reality.

Unrequited Pacific Love

Desire for love
to return to some safe place.
That is an illusion of security
in this labor
of reclaiming space

physical, internal, imaginative
or otherwise
create bricks from evidence
deposited in archives,
books, words and songs,
foods and dance
lands and memories,

such an arduous journey!

Yet no rest for the weary
nomad
whose genetics is to be
a wanderer,
lessons of ancestors
travelers across
floating worlds
that sunk and rose
in the fluid universe
of homelands.

Where then
can I stop to drink?
Take a rest?
In the temporal space of embraces
and loving making
that eventually ends
in the morning.
And the permanence of absence
is the only source of sanity
in this materialistic realm
that reduces magic
to physicality.

Oh, can I love
this ephemeral mystery?

Can I risk in
unfixity?

Will it ever beget a body
of my dreams
that is hooked from the sea,
manifested in prayers and dreams
for the days of peace?

Or perhaps again
I fall into
the prison of illusion?

Whoa is me...
Living in the mind
that seeks
bricks to build
rather than
courage to erode
and live underneath
fragile sandcastles,
units of infinite homes
that connects resting places
of ancestors who rode
canoes, boats, villages a-moving
to the currents of the time.
evolving, surviving
never left behind,

Oh, Self!

Let me love this truth
Let me love,
these roots.

My Love for You!

much love for my homegrown
multicultural peeps
grew up amidst intersections
of migrant and indigenous pathways
lost, found and lost again
roads that they walk and
create as they walk
becoming the love that they reclaim
in their bodies,
where different truths synthesize
to run blood in their veins
undocumented, unfixed
geneologies
that are in texts of written words
stories
music
food
lands
human bodies touching
and read with fingers
that trace carefully
like when we study books
of our friends and families
faces
like when our feet
walk ever so softly upon
the text of the land
so deeply,
we learn and come to know
so much knowledge all around us.
Blessings for the way
we are given our senses
and indulge in the wisdom
around us,
always.

to my lord: walk with me on this journey

This school
on the surface
levels
feels so
different
intentions
in the air
in the building
archi
texture
in the vibes
of people.
competition
of thought
thinking of truth
seeking truth
but what structure
of truth?
when we grow down paths
farther and farther from
you.

you who is
everywhere
pervasive
yet unseen.

our minds are
to the illusion
upon facades
of buildings
upon faces thinking
hard
upon shaking hands
clinging
to cigarette
butts
pens
and pencils
fingering
at keyboards
seeking to
fulfill the intention
of these
institutions
we are
embedded in.

And yet
you are there
mysterious
unseen

outside and
within
these paths
over beaten
over walked upon
logic of thought
frought with own mystery
to no where
but anxiety
and nervousness.

And yet
you grow
along side us.
Like the breeze
that is not felt
unrecognized
but shudders
the cold body
who has forgotten
that you offer a sweater
always
in the sunlight

that the trees
and plants
know.

but human minds
upon the path
to absence
invisible
abstract lands
where life is
growing
simplistic truth
that is
not complex

yet you are
complicated
and the sense of you
makes me cry
want to cry
amidst this place that seems
like
the no crying zone.

cause the people
are the bricks
upon building facades.
and our minds
are the grout
that makes cohesive
this thought
of building empires
of simplistic truths
concretized
that we lose our feet
to feel you.

disembodied into the sky.

we stare at the blank blue
simplistic
abstract
freedom?

o lord,
i pray that you
keep me warm
in your heaviness
sadness
that others feel
but deny

like manicured gardens
poisoned in toxins
of perfect minds

please help me
be like you
unseen

but thrive amidst
this world where you inhabit
but not only

How much I love you
but will never
grasp you
because you are more
than this building
this brick
i think.

you are this brick and more
forever
i seek to fall among
these thoughts
that build high!

Postcolonial Poetry

Its the kind of writing that makes you see yourself within dominant systems that organize the world. To recognize our complicity in what we call unjust or corrupt, helps us to recognize the mechanics of colonialism and neo-colonialism.

The Realm of the He'e
by Ellen-Rae Cachola
June 14, 2009

The wandering fish of mu
travels through
the realm of the he'e,
an octopus that sucks truths
like a hungry ghost of landmasses past,
Forgotten, misunderstood
in the back of memories

He shoots
tentacles far and wide
to feed off wisdoms
that become centralized
in his computer like brain.
Some say
in Haleakala and Kihei

Don't you know
the he'e's suction is thick?
To slough
it off
is tough
cause its like quicksand traps.
Can't get out
like abusive relationships
between nations
thought to be in love.
But really,
where is the love within?

And on those long tentacles
that stretch,
thousands, millions, quadrillions of suction cups
grow like opihis mutated
with teeth,
bloodthirsty
tastin salty
quick to judge
good or bad morality.
and yet people eat them
like nothin'!

And then
when the person take one shit
thats when they spread
to different lands
cancerous coming up
indigestion of consumptions
pullin triggers of guns,
as if bullets were dollar bills.
Pay for a future
that can be worn
not to heal the wounded heart.
Broken shards
floatin onto shore
sportin aloha shirts
as if all is well
when the soil grows
too expensive neighborhoods
pushing into backwoods

what is left?
but the rage
when the message of survival
faces title
waves drownin the Hawaiian landscape

Addictions
just to get by
land prices
keep risin like insecurities.
Jobs and education
for born and raised feed
disconnected stems of proteas
lie at unmarked graves
displaced
names
waitin to be regained
by those those who seek to retrace the footsteps
1898
manifest destiny
when the world
was blinded by colonial mentality
crystallized
the erasure of memory
of the he'e who brought to life
culture from east to west
west to east
turned him into a beast
when he is just forgotten, misunderstood
in the back of your memories

Welcome, to the head of the he'e
some think they come to escape
to run away from the discontents
of suburban landscapes
or fast pace of city life...
Consume exotic fruits
to include oneself in the garden of eden?

The truth is that story's value
was subject to inflation
commodification
reduced to economic narratives
of divide and conquer the wealths
that lived as land bridges
across island nations.
and in the poverty and absence
lives the wisdom of endurance
amidst a world blinded by arrogance
and yet, the songs of the past
played a rhythm of bodies paddling across
vast oceans
farmers striking injustice of unemployment
and dreams planted in rows of Hawaiian soil
waiting for the time
when children would
sing knowledge of ancient lands
echoing in the doldrum mindsets
of masses

This name is the frequency
indebted to essence of memory
planted in land
and grew people who choose to eat
for continuity.

Respects are paid
as food laid out
to the he'e
entangled in all our histories...

i want u

i want you
to teach me
how to be in love
in ways more
than we commonly know

i am not just
desiring your touch
body kisses
and words that
weigh warm
upon my chest.

but the chance
to be in silence
and aware
heightened
cause there is more
than meets the eye
when we
share space

our forms
will touch
and enjoy
the gifts
we are given
but our love
expresses
the depth of
how far we came
through lives
let go
of masks
charades
and now
we are able
to not pretend
but be
our real
naked
selves

Can I Love

Can I love
and believe
I am worthy
to be free.
not confined
to the borders
of narratives
that exploit
across the lands
and seas
where I bleed out from
and into.
Diffused
identities
I am not familiar with.
Offspring
I am alienated
from.

Can I love
and feel beautiful
in my skin
that in my land
I belong
and feel fertile
to nourish my soul.
And the buds
that emerge
are the markers
of my continuity
prosperity
thriving
the markers of
balance
a chance
to live.

Can I love
to express
more than just
a body
but a spirit
that isn't to be
bought or sold.
Our exchange
has no law
that determines
our roles
as we lay together
express the awe
for each other.
the sacred moments
we share upon this earth.

Mama

The cool breeze
smelling the pillows,
apo house smells,
Philippines in Hawaii.
Memories ingrained in fibers,
osmosis
from the mind.
When the migrant's
head
dreams
scalp, sweat, threads of hair
dreams of back home.

Now at home
lying in bed
immersed
into the room
inhale
exhale
sleep with the ocean sea breeze
coming through the jalousies,
caressing the lace curtains
that expand and plumped
like a tummy full
pregnant.

Mama gives birth to her son
Away from home.
But locked in a new one.
Everyday
waking up to breast feed
and then sit on the couch
While child sleeps.
Maybe look out the window
and count the clouds
pass across blue time.

The the child stirs
and mumbles moans
awaken from
day dream,
little trip,
back to life
And go to cradle
hold baby in arms
like the arms of a clock
tick
tock
heart beat
waiting until 5:30
When dad would arrive.

Next task is to prepare dinner.
Dinengdeng,
inapoy,
saluyot,
sida,
sili,
carabasa.
Danum, bauang
Stove burner
gas smell
flames.

I hate it here.
I want my own home.
But its not said
just plastered on her
unsmiling face.
Serving dinner
no forks or spoons
Ag kamet tayo.

So long I have been from

So long I have been far from
Mom and Dad
Apo Mary, Amang Juan
Apo Aning, Amang Everisto
Manong, Snowball, Choco and Moco.
Because my head was in the books
Thinking
Who we may have been
Who we might be in the present
Who may be in the future.
I pretend there’s someone else
like you
out there
That I can live with
Because you were a part of me
That will never change
Static
Past

And I thought I was on this flow
Moving forward
Somewhere
For us all
For everyone left behind
For the children to be

Little do I know
That you
Were moving too
Living,
Making ends meet
Sweeping the back patio
Feeding the dog and cat
And praying.
Going to work
Making music
Dreaming.

That you were with me all along
In the books
In the words
In the people
I meet in these lands
These new worlds I have been

You are the stories I tell them
You are the memories that rupture
Linear time
So that moving forward
Is weighted by the past
Of where I am from
Your stories have gone
Many miles.

Blessings

Blessings
When you are around me
And prophecies are practiced
In this way that we build relations.
Who we are,
Histories plastered on our skin
And our eyes tell stories of the past
Desires, hatred, fear, pain, love, hope, remember
We were together and we cried
Like the mountain bleeding
Until we drank to our own death.

Time and again,
We flowed across waters
Currents we ride
A stone fell and created ripples
And we washed onto shore
Rebirthed,
In chains.
Perhaps the stone
Was the fist closed
Holding in so much
Unable to unfold.

Blessings
When you are around me
Cause my heart opens
And my arms open
And my eyes open
Around you.
My skin unfolds at your touch
And I read histories in your presence
Remember,
In dreams,
We live together.
Walking in each other’s worlds.

Amerasian message

Its not my luck
As I lie here and you fucked me
Tucked me in this blind lust
Hate, taking the form
Of crust left upon my abdomen
Stuck bottle and umbrella
Inside
My cries run quiet
To your moans of indulgence
And I look into your eyes
Searching
For a fire of memory.

Perhaps you enact a past
Of grandmomma being raped
By slave masta.
And the whips upon his back
Made your daddy slap
Her face when she was pregnant
With you
And she was left alone on cold streets
To raise a son with role models
That sold crack for greens
And you were left with dreams
At the end of gun barrels

I look for a light
Dim like the red laterns
Of the district.
And you continue to suck me
Dry.
Skin and bones like children
In shivering homes
Frail and hungry.
Rice patties blossom
But so do land mines
And they bleed
Like my pussy
And you thrust like
The cum of a maxim gun
And I cry like they must have bled
During World War One.

Perhaps the barks of drill sargeant
Built a fortress around your heart.
Because underneath armor
Do comrades wear swastikas.
And they tease you for being a piccaninny
Cause you dared to smile at the red sunset
Above a green plain.
You came to the bar to erase
A past that never ends.
And the body desires exit.
Fill a vessel with
Tears
from generations.

I search in your eyes for a memory
When I arrived upon your silted, delta shore
In a double hulled canoe.
I saw you from a far
And brought a jar engraved:
Ma hal ka.
And your spirit heard the song.
Followed the melody back
To a bamboo forest
And the tarsius monkey’s eyes
Shone like the moon during an eclipse.
And its gaze witnessed
Our love that spilled the riches
Of caori shells upon brown
Fertile soil

Perhaps the child held
The memory in its cells
Despite the lines
That divided our lands
Severed, we struggle to remember
Amidst the silence of looted legacies.
Perhaps this violence brings us together
We lie in the heaving of trauma
Filled with sadness splattered
Skin to skin, cold and hot sweat
Collision gives birth to memory
Who breaks the myth of boundaries.

Black Streets

Black streets
Black dreams
Black sheaths
To cover the heat of our rage
Disengaged in the now
Triggered by the brow
Fists in the air blow
By a know how.

Assimilation created
This creature of consuming tendencies
Yet a history to shed
Treason and hypocrisies.
Mom and Pops taught me to
To be silent
Yet ancestors haunt in
Nightmarish dreams.

Black wreaths
Black trees
Black feats
To adorn the mantle
Of model minority
Born in the womb
Of momma’s western logic
Forming
Echoing in the chambers
Of her fruit growing
Plucked from the tree
I eat the fruit of knowledge

Black seats
Black treats
Black cleans
This white washed existence
Through the pulse
Of hip hop inundation
Elevation as a crab clamped
Identification
Yet recognition when released obligation
Reflection as addiction
Solitude as friend
To accompany me
As homelessness