~David Duane, Science

I.
I have landed,
A bit unfurled,
Ready,
To change the world.
Idealism, emotions,
Dynamic eyes with dilated hole
Fuel the adventure,
And nourish the soul.

Gonna dive right in,
And swim some strokes.
Ah… ooooh… ouch… uhf
Skinned knees & elbows.
Not deep enough.

II.
The wait, the watch, the wonder
The sights and sounds and smells.
Everything new, bizarre things dwells
At every moment and every day
Making a good story,
Someday.

Rhythms of time,
Ignored by clocks.
Dining on
Coconuts,
And fish heads that stare back.
Riding in
Dug out canoes,
And on top of trucks.
Chloroquine dreams,
While sleeping with anopheles,
And passing regular dumps,
Down at the toilet beach.
Walkabout,
With blistered feet.
Tok tok long Pijin? 1
My skills are feeble.

Throw out that rice…
That damn weeble!

Time to swim,
But still too shallow.
Can’t dive yet so I wade.
Feet, sore and callowed.

III.
Custom is strong,
Custom is different,
And elusive.
The universal response –
Eyebrows raised.
He’s holding my hand.
What’s it all mean?
Confusion and awkward.
Fighting boredom,
As the adventure ebbs,
While routine conquers.

Laundry by hand…
Harvest veggies and fruit…
Slaughter chickens and pigs…
Read and write by kerosene…
Daily monsoons and stifling heat.
Weary, of bush knife carrying relatives.
Wantoked2 by locals,
Or is it a shakedown?
Betelnut? – yuck, too bitter.

Weebles on the rice?
Just pick ‘em,
Then flick ‘em.

The distant shore fades below the horizon,
The ocean laps my ankles still,
Wading when I want to swim,
Oi mae3, gotta wait until…

IV.
But the sands are shifting,
There’s something moving,
Around and around and around,
In an endless spiral through a linear world,
Where anal minds explode,
Unless angles curve and edges round,
And where you are,
Matters more,
Than where you’ll go.

Embracing…
Rhythms of time, ignored by clocks,
While sitting by, the market docks.
Pijin Storying,
And grooving…
And strumming
And singing…
And hanging
Around like
Masta Liu Nomoa4.
Encountering devols…
And evading curses…
Doing the creep thing,
Til’ cousins invade our discretions.

Betelnut? – not bad,
With bro’s of lime and leaf,
It spins the head,
Turns teeth the color of beef.

Weebles still, devour rice,
But why bother remove the weebles now?
Protein, for a sufficient world.

Ah… finally,
Taking the plunge,
With confidence and fate,
To swim, in deep water now,
A transformation late.

Now so Solomon-ized
A wantok to the end,
The wait, the watch, the wonder
They pay that dividend.
I owe, and am owed
Kastom that taught,
As a Malaita-man is made
Cause’ even a fish
Out of Water,
Can learn to swim and wade.

~Peter Bradley, Math

I wanted a box of 64 crayons, one of every hue
I got a box of 8, now what to do

Blue – the sky on a warm spring day, or the color of the ocean at the beach

Black – the color of sadness, or the sky on a moonless night

Brown – chocolate chip cookies, or the mud that I was just playing in

Green – the color of money, or the envy I feel when I see my friends box of 64 crayons

Orange – a fresh piece of fruit, or OJ in the morning

Purple – a grape, or my favorite jelly bean

Red – the color of blood, or a fast car

Yellow – the sun, or a bunch of bananas

I wanted a box of 64 crayons, one of every hue
I got a box of 8, this will do