Category: 2015

Kia ora koutou, A few months ago I read the 4th Floor tasks sheet and thought that looks interesting. That’s the sort of recipe I like. I checked my utensils: eyesight not as good as it was but still pretty okay, hands not perhaps as supple as they once were and looking a bit the …

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1 | 2 Bumped into a Cheated Friend at Pak ‘n Save   His hair is dirty steel wool forehead a tyre tread his eyebrows ask me questions eyes like fish bait angling for answers I don’t have. His nostrils flare at my sympathy. Thin lips grip his mouth around teeth that are hermits. His …

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My Fat Memoir   I am a member of a fat society. This is a contemporary statistical and linguistic fact. I won my mum a Plunket healthy baby prize. The photo shows dimples and a double chin. My childhood build was described as stocky, and in my teens I had puppy fat (said with affection). …

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Porridge and Bananas   The best part about breakfast is where I eat it – in a room, not much more than a box-room, which has been many things in its nearly 200-year life but is presently our kitchen. A coal-burning range defies the frigid draughts of winter and welcomes me into a snug cocoon. …

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Our Daily Bread   Preparation: take one young specimen displaying evidence of a high grade carcinoma and treat as follows:   Ingredients: to be gathered and measured in advance.   Administer 60mg doxorubicin and 600mg of cyclophosamide: these are cyctotoxic and should be given intravenously every three weeks. Daily doses of dexamethasone, methylprednisolone, domperidone, lorazepam, …

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I Find Slaters   If I write about trees I have to write about everything –   Blue cheese and pink grapefruits. A small gold bell ringing over moss. Politicians’ billboards dumped on the side of the road.   I like hating people. It is fun. Dolphin killers and men in tall buildings with snuffly …

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Home-made Bread   Threshed, ground, bagged, its parts wait nurture yeast into slow bubbles, creamy promise strong, honest flour meets, envelops, pauses ready to concede, to swell, stretch and smooth   ease proud bounty onto the board, watch my mother’s hands push and pull, quiet rhythm flour, flirt, shape, dimple the friendly dough nestle it …

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 noodles and sweet things[1]   Saturday morning finds me seated at the kitchen table with the sun at my back, reading a book called ‘The Jews of Khazaria’. I knew there would be something of interest in this book. The sort of things I am looking for are in the newspaper too, but you have …

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Elvis – A True Story   I am bipolar don’t you know certified from head to toe   it reads, high functioning, sparkling wit alas, hallucinates a bit   So, on a little manic buzz I went to Scotland 2001   to see the place my genes begun lift a kilt and have some fun …

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Surveillance                                                         the lino lined up and the squares were horizontal with the windows a glasshouse of sorts the fifties furniture sat where it was placed   in black and white she is typing on the deck I’m in shorts he must have taken the picture   later I will slide down the deck banister      …

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