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