by Albert Wendt
projected a noble gracious and loving atua
with all the undeniable virtues of a Mother
But behind that front we had to cover up
Her enormous misdeeds to do with
Her appetites and preferences
In Her youth — the first hundred years or so — She
was to put it crudely insatiable even
by the licentious standards of atua (atua
of course are excused from incest animalism
sadism masochism fetishism and all vices
we consider inhumanly deviant)
Toothless hypocrite! Nafanua interjected
unexpectedly You schizoid guilt-ridden
humans want us atua to play out all
your secret yearnings and cravings!
True replied Auva’a but you my dear
overindulged our sins and vices
Really wallowed in your meaty excesses
You were an Eater-of-the-World like
Mulialofa Vela’s special friend and we’ve
never blamed you — after all your
brainless eel-tailed father raised you totally
as male with not one but four hefty clubs
Consequently You were four times
more greedy than other atua
four times more a World-Eater than Mulialofa
chasing four times more women than even
Tuialamu of the Endless Penis (but alas
you’re cockless!)
Up you with a spear She swore I’m go-
ing to bed (Auva’a chuckled as She
rushed into the inner chamber) You’re
just a dirty oldman wormripe for
death and hooked on shit-stench
pissings-on obscene whispers and raw dog testicles
You love having your excesses recorded! he called
Poor shrivelled taulaaitu you can’t raise
it any more She replied Power most demanding of
aphrodisiacs has buggered you to slackness
Ungrateful girl he muttered tears like dew
drops in his cataractous eyes
You must never fall in love with Her he warned me
His was a hopeless love as deep as
his aiga’s history and Her taulaaitu
before him with power as their fatal aphrodisiac
And without Her they would lose that
They could not exist without each other
8
All Night Recital
Next day it was as if they hadn’t quarrelled
(This was to be their pattern) I asked why
Tupa’i was excluded from our meetings
Too young and a warrior said Auva’a
Better my General squat on the field
unwise always erect for war She said
I suffer insomnia so for tonight let’s sing
the darkness away let’s see if you’re as
good as they say Vela She commanded
I feigned ‘the shy poetic modesty’ defined
by Leomalu the famous Tumua orator when
he won the poetry tournament centuries before
So She started with a song overripely sweet
that sieved quickly through my memory
when She ended and we pretended
enthusiastic admiration but She said
Sharkshit — I know I’m no singer and poet
You sing you longwinded short-arsed braggart
Something fast (and sexy) or slow (and modest)?
Slow and wise like your liverless Atua the Lulu
Quickly I sorted through my House of Imagery
found the solo closed my eyes and sucked it up
from the inventing moa through gullet
to the shaping light of the tongue:
(1) A Definition of Atua
Atua are rooted in the soil bed of the heart
in our terrible dreams that search to vine
us to Vanimonimo where we began
Atua to explain the tides that flow in our blood
and connect us to the weeping moon
and the pain of flesh and bone
the reason in the wind’s unpredictable curve
and the silence that weaves all things
in the paradigm we must discern
the wherefore in the dragonfly’s midair hover
and in the sungreen depths of the se
eating the new leaf vein by living vein
Atua are our reflections becalmed in the hurricane’s eye
to blame for our madness our inability to love
Her flattery was smoother laxative than papaya
and I recited and recited to the humming
mosquitoes and the untold story of
the admiring sparkle in Her eyes
Auva’a drooped into snoreless sleep
opened mouth teethed with my solo
At midnight She insisted I rest while
She recited (very forgettable compositions)
A short sample: He loves you yes yes yes
He loves you yes yes yes
He loves you yes yes yes
He loves you yes yes yes!
Another: I’m tied to Falealupo’s skirt
and she’s hooked to my line
like Ti’iti’iatalaga fished up lands so fine
I’m tied fast to Falealupo’s skirt
but I don’t mind because I’m doing fine
with her hooked to my line
When I flattered Her too laxatively She said
Everyone tells me lies: they say what
I want to hear to get what they want
That’s the fate of the powerful
You lied (most poetically) to your other patrons
but please don’t do it to me
So deadly a gentle threat I almost crapped
on the tired mat but She saved me again
Make another song a song to send me
to sleep fit for atua Not sleep for pigs
(though you found them hyper-raunchy) Not sleep
for whales and dogs (Have you tried those?)
(2) Cave of Prophecies
In Nafanua’s Cave of Prophecies
the future is a foetus growing
in the amniotic silence
In Nafanua’s Cave of Prophecies
we are the riddle of Her dreaming
the taulaaitu try to anchor
Some pilgrims come for clues
to a dreaded future and
the riddle to be deciphered
Others to heal deformities to body
and the agaga hungry for silence
or passionate power
And in the Cave of Prophecies
we each find the prophecies
we bring in our groping hands
But because Nafanua is atua All-Seeing
we never think to help Her
unriddle the pain of Her eternity
9
In Search
Call this episode ‘Atua in Search of the Double-O’
Yes atua too can be frigid (or impotent)
Ample explanation for my early insatiability:
conditioned from birth to fuck death through war
when peace came I couldn’t come no matter
by what means method or invention
Conditioned too to be warrior male
I was drawn only to the honey pot so
fingerstirred and tasted every pot in sight
And being atua with extrasensory perception
no honey could escape my vision
and my compulsion to experiment:
for each I transformed into the ideal lover
in their secret fantasies and they loved
my technical wizardry and energy
In desperation I tried group therapy
but even an entourage of therapists failed
So I took to watching (at first furtively)
unrehearsed couplings in the village
When I failed I forced my taulaaitu
to set up female pilgrims with the promise of
salvation to act out my fantasies in
the Temple while I salivated and played
to the queendom that never came
You suffer from penis-envy and only a man
can give you that Auva’a diagnosed
But the suggestion made me vomit
My simple father heard about my ‘problem’
(from spirits I’d abused) and prescribed
a few wars — short brutal and savage
From everywhere my taulaaitu brought (secretly)
every variety and combination of woman
Then to their everlasting shame I tried
creatures of the land then sea then air
But to no avail except to make me expert
in the sexuality of every female creature
My taulaaitu saw I was in my rages
ready to resort to my father’s war remedy
so they summoned the famous taulasea of
the queendom and promised them eternal life
if they ‘unlocked me’ (Auva’a’s phrase)
(And did they scramble for immortality!)
One baldheaded gnome from Lefaga tried
every kind of foot and footsmell on me
Another a seaegg faddist fed me putrid
concoctions of raw seaegg roe and
shark sperm (or so he said) When I was hit
by massive diarrhoea I exiled him
An unwashed hag from Poutasi massaged me
all over with dog spittle and then
her three daughters licked it
off me — delicious but it failed
A blind Aleipatan prescribed dirty ditties
sung in tune to hand playing
A chubby slobbering fofo famous for his
‘invisible cures’ arranged me in all sorts
of naked poses his favourite pose too
explicit to mention and then while he ogled
me in that position shouted obscenities
and fiddled until he sprayed over my head
thick gooey hairoil which he insisted
I rub into my hair and leave for a week
I exiled him too when my hair unrooted
in desperate fistfuls that stank like excrement
(I couldn’t appear in public for weeks
until my unlucky hair resprouted)
A breastless virgin lauded for her
‘pure cures’ dived into trances and raved
in the voices of whatever lovers I wanted
Her maddened voices crooning suggestions
such as ‘C’mon baby lick my fire’
almost got me blowing my top like a whale
Then as in other well-told lives just when
I was frantic enough to eat the Darkness again
a stranger appeared as quiet as my mother’s
hopes at the Temple entrance slender
as if afloat in a white tiputa and neck-
lace of polished shark’s teeth and smiling
Delicate face of an aristocratic young woman
yet as she glided into the Temple she moved
like a man experienced with women
When she sat at Auva’a’s feet
she was woman again demure long-
fingered dancer in her speech and manner
Tagatalua was her name she informed Auva’a
(Two-People-in-One most appropriate of names)
When she untied her bundled hair and it
streamed a fine tapa sheen down her
dreaming buttocks I nearly fainted with
the beauty of it and my moa was muscled fire
That night in the flickering light of the candlenut
fire she entered my chamber and took
off her tiputa: I melted with the sight of
breasts and hips suggesting woman fine
down of pubis soft to touch
her body exuding aura of fecund earth
I reached out and she flowed into my embrace
— the healing tide Tagaloa blessed
the Rock with at our start
She flowed over my geography —
tongue and nose magic that tuned
my barren sinews into searching tides
And we swayed quicker and quicker
to the earth’s recurring rhythms and the Vanimonimo
unpeopled in sightless darkness louder
and quicker until I disintegrated into
a million pieces scattering into
the singing Vanimonimo in the first coming
that burst in invisible currents through
villages land mountains sky all creatures
Mafui’e’s celebrating tremors a world
of lovers coming together the whole-cosmos
over in that Night to be known as
Po-o-le-Tetena Night-of-the-Orgasm
Po-na-tetena-ai-le-Tama’ita’i The Night-
the-Lady-Orgasmed in which I slept
for the first time free of rage regret
the eel’s tail and the imprisoning ego
bandaged by love that tasted of mortality
in the flesh of Tagatalua who was to die
Tagatalua was asleep when I woke to
the chatter of morning hens and the breeze
washing through the Sacred Palms
and caressed her with my exploring eyes
Heart in surprise: out of her black
forest sprouted an erect penis
But instead of nauseous shock I was
now hooked by love to the male mystery
The full round head my fingers explored
hesitantly then the smooth hard stem
I’m both woman and man Tagatalua murmured
We can love in whichever role you prefer
She lifted up to reveal her miraculous truth
Please love me now as a man — and both! I whispered
The male I knew first then and the waves
of the First Tide again surged up
and through my astounded eyes
and the Vanimonimo was whole alive singing
All things are Female and Male together
That’s our nature too but we’ve split
it to let man enslave all
else in the Scheme
Through my love of Tagatalua I rediscovered
the natural order of our selves
10
Exemption and Riddle
Why is it that on finding what we most love
we destroy it by trying to own it forever?
My taulaaitu — the scheming bastards — reminded me
Tagatalua was mortal and triggered
my quest to make her atua (Later I realised
they were jealous of her influence)
As Emperor of Death your father could perhaps
grant her permanent exemption Auva’a suggested
I hadn’t seen my parents since leaving Pulotu
to win my queendom and dreaded asking
for so unusual a favour but love
makes us horrendously brave
Dad wouldn’t outsmile a rock (though Pulotu
was a happy place) Always serious
but not a pessimist Mum described him So
I was elated when I entered his austere Court
and he smiled widely insisting I sit beside him
while Mum the always smiling pessimist wept
Don’t you travel with a party? he asked
Can’t afford it! I joked Very unbecoming of
your status and aiga he said Dad only spirits
and atua can enter your kingdom — and my
subjects are neither! I reminded him
Should’ve killed some to accompany you! he grumbled
That’s an obscenity Mum chastised him
But what are atua going to think of a Ruler
who can’t afford a
n entourage — and just look
at the rags She’s wearing he said
You raised Her for war not dancing she replied
And as a son! I stabbed home
Out! Out! he ordered everyone and sulked
while Mum and I chattered and ignored him
Despite being the worst of worriers Mum hadn’t
aged one grey hair or wrinkle You worry
too much like your father! she fussed
(as she scrutinised me for signs of the eel)
What kind of daughter are you? he interrupted
You’ve never visited us — we who made you
what you are Call that alofa loyalty
to aiga? Ashamed of my tail are you?
(Always back to his fatal flaw) That’s unfair
Dad — I’ve just been too busy I lied
Sharkshit Absolute sharkshit! he muttered
This is Nafa’s first visit and you carry on
like that! Mum pleaded (Nafa is my Dad’s
pet name for me) And that did the trick
She’s bloody thin he said Bring on
the feast I’ve prepared for my daughter!
Dad was a chef extraordinaire: considered an
absolutely un-ali’i profession but no one
dared think him common or express
dislike of any of his cooking After a lavish
youth in the sea he specialised in
seafood and from new spirits sought exotic recipes
I’ve never been particular about food and enjoyed
whatever he concocted pretending extra
enthusiasm for those sea specialities he peddled
as aphrodisiacs: Will put strength into
your Muscle! he’d leer forgetting
I was muscleless and untutored in cooking
