Missionaries Inside me the Sky-Piercers terrible as moonlight in black and winged ships breakingfrom the sun's yoke through the turtle-shell of sky into these reefs,miraculous iron barking the sermon of Light, in search of souls in the palm-milk child. Polynesians Inside me the dead woven into my flesh like the music of bone flutes:my polynesian fathers who escaped the sun's wars, seeking these islands by prophetic stars, emerged from the sea's eye like turtles scuttling to beach their eggsin fecund sand, smelling of the seas - the stench of dead anemone and starfish, eyes bare of the original vision, burnt out by storm and paddles slappingthe hurricane waves on, blisters bursting blood hibiscus to gangrened wounds salt-stung.These islands rising at wave's edge - blue myth brooding in orchid, fern, and banyan; fearful gods awaiting birth from blood clot into stone image and chant -to bind their wounds, bury their journey's dead, as I watching from shadow root, ready for birth generations after they dug the first house - postsand to forget, beside complacent fires the wild yam harvest safe in store houses - the reason why they pierced the muscle of the hurricane into reef's retina, beyond it the sky's impregnable shell; and slept, sleep waking to nightmare of spear and club, their own young - warriors long-haired with blood cursed, the shrill cry of children unborn, sacrificed.No sanctuary from the sun-black seed inside the self's cell - coral lacerating the promise, self-inflicted wounds at the altar of power will not heal.2. 'The black dew,' said my pastor uncle, the pulpit juggler, at his funeral, 'does not discriminate between jugglers and engineers. Shaman of Visions (Auckland UP, 1984). Our islands are Tagaloaalagi’s stepping stones across Le Vasa Loloasmall and frail but courageous enough to bear his weight and manahigh enough to keep us above the drowning and learninghow to navigate by the stars    currents and the ferocity... Albert Wendt is a Samoan poet, novelist, playwright, artist, scholar, and educator. Knives. Please log in using one of these methods to post your comment: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Post navigation ← A week of Poems: Amy Leigh Wick’s ‘I, Melchoir’ A week of poems: Emma Neale’s “‘So Sang a Little Clod of Clay'” → He has been the recipient of many awards throughout his illustrious career; in 2013, he became a member of the Order of New Zealand, the highest possible honor in New Zealand. Arrogant gleam in his eyes with nowhere to sail without a ship, Straight junker nose inhaling the bitter serenity of failure, Thick polynesian lips shaped for wine, whisky and fierce infidelities.White-suited in a cane chair, the kaiser of whisky come-courting the camera, in love with Bismarck, burdened with the failure of Europe, heir to the cold crystal eye.4. The Kingdom was come inCalico. His crew tossed him to the sharks and sent home only his blue glass eye - crystal ball of Europe - which my grandfather buried under a palm, a fitting monument to his father's copra lust. ! This poem has not been translated into any other language yet. ! Escape from the grasp of my tongue, images shatter into dust from which myth rises to elixir air at the rim of my skin: In her years of scarlet ginger flower snaring bumble-bee, I remember her lilt fingers in scent of moon, plucking my clumsy tongue to butterfly hymn; my mind, white as spider lily, to morning pigeon in tavai, cooing; eyes to vision of her fatal human face that knew the bravery of tears. He has published more than a dozen novels and short story collections that explore many different themes in genres. Traders Inside my the dead: a German. Poetry. Memories of her are flamboyant blooms scattered across pitted lava fields under the moon's scaffold, or fish darting amoung fabulous seaweed. ( Log Out /  Nails for each palm cross. Inside us the Dead: Poems 1961 to 1974 (Longman Paul, 1976). Inside Us The Dead Poem by Albert Wendt - Poem Hunter. My fathers' gods, whp had found voice in wood, lizard, and bird, slid into the dark like sleek eels into sanctuary of bleeding coral, but were exorcised with silver Cross harnessing the sun's beauty, burning, burning.And my fathers, in the pulpit's shadow bowed, slept the new sleep, waking to menof steel hide exuding a phosphorescent fear, and learnt to pray the litany of sin -the Fall in a woman's thighs, the papaya feel of her gift and phallus sprungAll was sin. Fiction The Book of the Black Star (Auckland UP, 2002). Comments about Inside Us The Dead by Albert Wendt mawa tindipa (5/20/2019 8:35:00 PM) i think this poem is so fantastic because it express everything a fomer colony country should express! Stone, iron, lava, salt, fuel to construct bridges between him nimble feet and the angels; a mathematical universe wired to his computer fingertips, the planets tick his vision of designing, the ball thrown up will not come down.That's what my brother wanted to be - feet in iron, head in the rainbow, rewinding the moon.