Most of us should know that the fourth Thursday,
is called a Thanksgiving Day celebration.
The first Tuesday after the first Monday,
we elect the leaders of our nation.
Maybe you even know the first Sunday,
is when Daylight Savings comes to an end.
But did you know on November the first,
National Pomegranate Month begins.
Also, Native Heritage and Military Family Month,
Epilepsy, Alzheimer’s, and COPD awareness.
How about NAN-O-WRI-MO or Pancreatic Cancer too,
we’ll throw in No Shave November just for fairness.
The first Wednesday is Eating Healthy Day,
the first Thursday is Man Makes Dinner.
The first Friday is Samoan Arbor Day,
and of course, Black Friday is always a winner.
Who can forget World Vegan Day,
or Coronation Day of the fifth Druk in Bhutan.
It’s Liberty Day in the Virgin Islands,
Self-Defense Forces Commemoration in Japan.
It is Veterans Day on the eleventh,
Pneumonia Day on the twelve.
Parfait day on the twenty-fifth,
if you don’t care about your health.
I could just go on and on listing them,
but just between me and you.
We’d still be here reading next November,
and we probably still would not be through.
Categories:
samoan, poetry,
Form: Rhyme
Proud to be Samoan
Living the Fa'a Samoa
The unique culture
The unique culture
Expressed in dance and music
Siva and fa'ataupati
Siva and fa'ataupati
Graceful and energetic
Telling ancient stories
Telling ancient stories
With art, craft and tattoos
Symbols of identity
Symbols of identity
Rooted in family and faith
Proud to be Samoan
Categories:
samoan, allusion, appreciation, community, devotion,
Form: Haiku
The green-blue marks of the tufuga's* tools run down his thighs
Patterns in shades of deep-ocean-dark and unsealed-road-like lines
Back to his ancestors and forward to his descendants
He is young and good in a way that makes it impossible to imagine he might ever become old
angry...
drunk.
He speaks quietly like the 'shhhhhhh' sound his teachers made when he laughed too loudly as a child
His skin is brown like the soil used to be
and soft,
like it still is,
underneath the white man's concrete.
*Samoan tattooist
Categories:
samoan, culture, men, teenage,
Form: Free verse
To the memory of my brother
Sometimes,
I sit all alone
And think of you.
I close my eyes-
Close them tightly
And remember sitting beside you on those wooden buses that only Apia still has
I see you lying on the old bedframe without a mattress
And taste the fizzy-sweet Coca-Cola you’d buy for me
I hear your laughter as I smile
At the memories of running after you with a broom
And all your long prayers at lotu* time
Prayers.
When I think of prayers I think of you even more.
I wonder
I really wonder
If I said enough of them for you while they still counted.
Brother,
Did you know I prayed?
Prayed every day and every night
for you?
I wonder, did you feel my prayers?
Even on that last night in your cold motel room
Dripping with despair
Did you know I was praying?
Did you wonder, even?
I wonder, more than anything
If
As you took your life
You considered not doing it
Maybe…just for me?
Just to keep the promise you made that I’d never be alone
Or did you just go...?
Without even wondering
If I was wondering
Where you were?
Sometimes,
I sit all alone
And think of you.
*Samoan word meaning 'evening worship'
Categories:
samoan, death of a friend,
Form: Free verse
I was working in the Capitol late one night
When my eyes beheld an eerie sight
Nancy Pelosi began to rise
And suddenly to my surprise
She did the bash
She did the Samoan bash
She did the bash
It was a liberal smash
She did the Bash
It gave me a rash
She did the bash
She did the Samoan Bash
She denied American Samoa minimum wage
Somebody left her out of her cage
She could care less, no conscience found
So Star Kist stock didn’t go down
She did the bash
She did the Samoan Bash
She did the Bash
It was a liberal smash
She did the bash
It was her husband’s flash
She did the bash
She did the Samoan bash.
Now all is peaceful in socialist land
As we watch our retirement sink in the sand
You have to give the devil her due
When she’s done shafting them
She’ll shaft me and you too.
She did the bash
She did the Samoan bash
She did the bash
Now they have no cash
She did the bash
She believes we’re all trash
She did the bash
She did the Samoan bash.
This verse was inspired by "The Monster Mash" which wasn't near as scary as
Congress and the former Speaker of the House
Categories:
samoan,
Form: Rhyme