Asleep at the Feet of King Kamehameha
Asleep at the feet
of others
Asleep at the feet
of so called success
frozen in time.
What happened?
Do you wish to draw power
from the past?
To set matters right
in your life?
Would a gift of money
counterwise contribute
To your success?
The passerbys,
Have they learned of your plight?
Do they know of who you are?
my voice expelled, and yet you are
as motionless as the stone.
Your silence describes all,
What will you become tomorrow,
After the osmosis of power?
Will history give you a gift
she has not given to me?
I have worked hard all my life
And never received such.
Perhaps you will,
And thus level the field.
So perhaps,
eye to eye,
on your feet,
we will speak tomorrow.
As a creative technologist, designer, author and illustrator, Capt. Jeff has created billboards to broadcast commercials to corporate identities, formed four corporations, three of which (Creative Intelligence, Inc., Shattuck Marine, Inc., Ocean Tiger, Inc.), he takes a seat on the board of directors. An author and media outlet contributor, Jeff is pleased to be able to contribute to the body of knowledge that belongs to every person now and in the future. Mostly he loves writing and illustrating his childrens books. Visit him on www.dreamtodesign.com.
Smoke
by Teal Takayama
The night after his death
I went to bed in silence,
more aware of my body,
aware of every step and movement.
I could feel the action in every
solemn joint. It continued that way
for a while, I felt everything
and it was exhausting.
I’d think of that one time when
we were on the back steps,
another cold night. We were
smoking and watching the smoke
drift away above the bushes,
breathing and watching our breath fade.
Then we’d watch it all, the transient white
separating until it disappeared out
of the range of the weak streetlight.
“The way you can tell the difference,” he said,
“is that breath disappears in two seconds.”
He was right, and so for the rest of the time
I would exhale the condensation
and count it, one, two,
gone. Meanwhile he watched,
the smoke from his cigarette carried
high. Now I think about you every time
I see my breath.
I never felt as strongly as you did,
never understood what you were thinking about
when you just watched.
Years later I still don’t know, I’m still
counting breaths while you watch, somewhere,
smoking. I can see your smoke still rising
into the night, past the bushes,
past the trees, higher. Until
it has disappeared out of the light,
out of the range of my vision.
Until it is just the smoke,
separating from my breath,
rising higher, higher,
one, two, gone.
Teal Takayama is from Pearl City, Hawaiʻi. She studied writing under Lois Ann Yamanaka and attended Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon. She currently works on federal policy as a legislative assistant in Washington, D.C.
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