Day 27 - 2.22.2013

Prompt for: February 22, 2013
Subject or Theme: Ultimate Vacation Destination
Word(s) to Include: discretion
Forbidden Word(s): escape(d/ing/s), getaway(s), vacation(ing/s)
Additional Parameters: Minimum 16 lines.

His 63rd Birthday


Always had a hankerin’, a fascination for the BB63-
The Mighty Mo, the USS Missouri. To prowl her decks
to the precise spots where MacArthur walked,
and Japan surrendered.
To climb down the gangways,
peer in hollow, hallowed depths and berths.
To touch the massive guns,
that once glowed lava red in heat of battle, as they
pounded, hammered Okinawa and Iwo Jima.
He will touch all of that: touch yesterday,
tomorrow.
He’s been called Mo for fifty years;
proud of that,
wants to salute her flag.
His camera will click off the moments,
the steps he takes and I shall follow in his.
Needs to offer up a prayer
for USS Arizona souls: All that defend us.
He takes to heart; intrinsic to his being.
His dream to do;
mine to see he gets his.


Walk Waikiki
in shadow of rearing Diamond Head, iconic scene
more so for imagined past,
turn up the street past the Queen Kalikalipiana
where baobab trees sling roots from top branches,
and offer gnarled knees in ancient shade.

Quietly sitting, simply watching
North Shore waves crest and crash,
the tumultuous curve,
endless spiral of iridescent wave upon wave upon wave.
We will play like children: splashing,
dancing a dared tide,
building castles
knowing the one we’ve built together
is more concrete
than shifting, wave-washed sand.
But we shall build our sand-pail
castles because we never stop dreaming
and we could never run out of sand.
We shall have strangers
capture our wave moments.

Changing islands, taking flight
Like two seabirds catching currents
we will soar over a volcano,
see spitting orange saliva
dripping to hiss in pacific water.
Grounded, walk the blackened crust
of cooled inner earth
and take pictures.
Side by side, not two feet apart, we two
will take our visions home; lava heated smiles,
odd formations, intriguing junctions of earth and heart.

Another island where we wander rainforests
dripping with floral dew,
capture leafy patterns:
shadow upon sun upon leaf upon soul.
Bird of Paradise flights of fancy will pull us in,
where one can chase shadows
or completely withdraw beneath
for sun cannot penetrate here:
the day is mocked
in black and indigo masks
of night.


To Kauai to
climb high into the canopy
spend the night in a tree house
with naught but small yellow birds and lime-green lizards
for company.
As cascading crystalline water music
orchestrates endlessly ,
we will play:
Cast away
clothes and inhibitions;
as sky clad, we just are.
No need there for discretion
as isolation is the theme.

Returning to the real world by
zip line past those crystal falling waters,
down through trees hundreds of feet tall
into darkness so brilliant
coming back into the sun is a letdown.

Luau on a beach at dusk
as the sky is clad in all the colors
woven into a muumuu and
the gods,
pale wisps of their former selves,
join in

where fires dance with the stars,
and the drums beat
the age old rhythms of the heart
calling all: god and man
to dance, to celebrate
all we are
and will or can be.