Category: 2015

Big Nanna’s Porridge   Sea-bacon, burnt butter wake me from my Space 1999 slumber, kahawai swimming at Mohaka’s mouth not but an hour ago until Dad’s reti board dragged the mottled flesh into Mum’s pan. ‘Big Nanna wants you for breakfast – don’t let her see you do that. Take…

1 | 2 Gun Laws   If I had a gun I’d paint it in gold leaf and put it in a glass box frame and hang it on the wall with a sign that says: in emergency break the glass, if I had a gun   it would be…

Meagre Rations   You cut through my feelings like a hot knife slicing butter sautéed me in a pan turned the heat up to ‘high’. I sizzled for a while edges turned golden, then brown finally black. You ladled me onto a plate served me up with a sprig of…

Turbulence   The Beaufort Scale is the scale of the windforce               low   on ebb and flow, the sail is the monarch’s wings which sings, on a flower – the ‘Early Cheer’ that is here, on the coast, on a southerly, sunny honeyed day   The Beaufort Scale…

1 | 2 | 3 Planet of Dreams – Medical Officer’s Records – 20 January, 2265   Our flight path past the abandoned planet was leaked to the crew. Next thing we knew they were rioting in the corridors, and the chef was missing. I found my patient under an…

Letter to Rosina   Rosa smiled at me this morning Nana –   that same blue-eyed cheeky grin you made   langered on the brandy and the voices of my uncles –   in that railway house in Moera.   Irish eyes and Danny Boy – washboards, spoons and bottle…

Sensational Plates   Dirt and wayward grass in fields Manure and fodder, pretty much the same thing. Stampede for a feed and hay bales dressed in rolls of plastic.   Chewed straw and a quick shot McDraw from Taupō, slash, T-bone steak and veg that’s chow come. Know what I…

1 | 2 Identify Yourself They Said   I was born in the wasteland of forests and gods, on the tail of our fish, near the spirit trail between tide lines along Ninety Mile Beach that leads to the place of leaving.   The sea sang my first welcome in…

The Thrill of the Chase   I once heard a poet describe standing in a field and hearing a poem race towards her. She knew she only had seconds to reach out and grab it, before it overtook her and disappeared. To anyone who is not a writer this sounds…

Childhood Apology – yes, I took the pear   I apologise Didn’t mean it to be so random It just caught my eye Wasn’t meant to be so like it was It just happened that it was Didn’t mean it to offend wanted it so much Maybe now we’ve had…