La'akea Sky Smith - One Poem

Bone Armor

I

Seemingly
as a virtuous but mislead
philanthropist fallen angel
and victim of Lucifer’s
beguiling touch
I’ve become well
aware, in fact
wary indeed,
those words that present
my demise—
those foul flicks of the
tongue of dread
that seem to proliferate
death itself.
Yet this distinction—
of life and death
and the infinite
shape of cycling
the scent of time
and the feel
of partiality—
remains the one
original fallacy.
For shame
and the guilt of
remembering forgotten things
I spew my own
mistaken army
these legions of word
upon this page
as my final defense
my bone armor…
and forgetfulness in itself
the only true brother
of glory
all my own.
Still in the light of
beginningless dawn
my bone armor—
waxing molten flaw—
becomes the only suitable
beauty.
No metaphors can forever
contain the Blacksmith
who set his crown upon
a king, forgot his anvil
he who does not pretend to lead
but never follows.
No asylum
self portrait
smeared in bile
and amniotic fluids
no inken masterpiece
can express this masterpiece
for something so essential
expressed in essenceless paint
or words becomes charcoal
but a twisted and drugged
memory of a chained
polygamist
who beats each
wife with a
new decrepit fist
and withers
forever untraceable
half hearted flailing
sinking into its own
bottomless witches’ well.
Exactly the same as
the sleaze-hipped
slumping opium glaze
of a Chiang Mai
prostitute resigned
outside the palace gates.

II

One so beaten
with feverish nightmare
deserves the soft kiss
of gentle awakening
But one such as I
the original
drunken elephant
requires the swift
accomplishment of
the dagger
the bludgeoning
of crazy wisdom
and the selfless feast
at the banquet
where newly confident
slave lies upon a
blood soaked silver plate
offering to the guest
a host of demons
and the king of dread
himself—our own beloved
wearing a fang necklace
and a bone fashioned
breast plate

Born in Hawaii, but living at a Buddhist center in the Santa Cruz mountains, La’akea Smith enjoys meditating, surfing, reading, lounging and contemplating in the beautiful red woods.