Deb Curreen Author

 I'm off to join the convicts, because I know I'm going to jail. I know I promised myself and the world, I wouldn't write poems about any friend, but I have, I just can't help myself, so poetry jail will be my end. I hope to make new friends in there, someone new to write about. I hope my words will make them sing and laugh, and dance and jump about. I hope I don't upset anyone, I don't want to get thrown out. Because where do you go after jail, when you can no longer stay, where do the fallen poets go, when their words cause outrage and dismay. Is there a dark and dreary dungeon, where ostracised wordsmiths dwell? A place to sit and mutter, a room that smells like hell. Even though my subjects were anonymous, you could still guess their names, I always new my verses were dicey, but I still played that tricky, slippery game. My editor tried to warn me, but her words sailed straight past my ear, "people can get upset, so stop making fun of them with your wor

. The sun is bright and a soft wind blows calmly through your window, I say, "Listen to that singing outside, what can it be?" "It's the tuis,' you say, "they're waiting for me." "But not today," I said, and you laughed with me, "not today, I'm not ready, they will have to wait." I agreed, no one was ready yet, and you stayed for a while longer. They returned the next day, and the next, those tuis sang together, and we came to enjoy their boisterous chorus. "They're still here," I told you. "Yes," you said, "but it's sunny, so they can just stay in the trees and cry," We laughed together, as we watched the tuis in the kowhai, harmonising together, in the branches that touched the sky. I stand over you, some days later, the sky was grey and the clouds hung lower than broken hearts, you were gone, leaving us quietly, in the early morn. I looked in the kowhai but the tuis were also gone. You

the tangi rain has stopped, finally the earth is sodden and heavy the pain in our hearts too. while our minds swell with memory our spirits limp through the days as our rangitahi now rest in the arms of our tupuna.   the tangi rain is over. the absent face of the sun  breaks apart dark clouds of grief that have hung for three days over our whenua.   shade we never asked for  unbidden, strangling pain wailing good byes dearly departed lifted away into the skys.   if feels like the tangi rain goes on forever. the sun shines drying the last drops from a silent cross that's keeping watch, while guiding   a young soul on the path to eternity. Te Rerenga Wairua sends thunder waves beat the rocks with farewells.   standing on the headland tossing  goodbyes with roses arohanui mai we love you... (come back) the tangi the rain it is now over.

I remember the Post Office in Mangonui across from the store, beside the shore where we collected our mail, Cashed a cheque, bought a stamp stood outside in the morning sun enjoying a friendly chat,  about this, and also that. The telephone exchange nestled out the back, the place that linked the town as one,  by party line, one conversation at a time. Long short long, funny ring tones back then.   The Post Office was all business inside, socialising  outside before we wound our ways home, By foot, bike or  a car driven slowly,   round that windy, pretty harbour road. Where flame trees hung splendidly in red, throwing shade on our foot steps ,  protecting our head, as glorious flowers beckoned birds in for lunch, allowing nests to be built in their arms. Now I walk in your door, Post Office, like it’s 1904 precious years later, many incarnations of cafes and bakers, bars and meal makers, we have our own Little Kitchen, already and waiting t

 We've woken to several news items on the morning of Sunday 15 October, 2023. Firstly, our beautiful country and home, Aotearoa, is blue, politically, which is kind of ironic, blue being the black power gang colour and the National party being so anti-gangs. It was kind of like a gang stand off last night, in a way, all these patched up fullahs, from their respective red and blue gangs, in their fancy suits, shouting threats at each other, trying to take over one another's turf. A turf that has never belonged to them in the first place. Tangatawhenua! The next scary news item is that Iran is warning Israel to back off, "before it's too late". Whatever the hell do they mean? I think we know what the Iranians mean, and it's not good. More fighting over turf.  Two gangs or nations, tribes, families, patched up, shouting and shooting at each other, only this time it's real bullets and not just idle threats. They don't wear leather jackets and their bodies

 I will go down to the beach today, down to the sea on those craggy rocks to stare the waves down, dip my toes in ice cold pacific blue water, to dream for a while and remember you. I will walk alone across the chilly rocks, and stare at a silent ocean that shivers and roils, at the time and tide that is waiting for me. I will find the darkest rock to perch on and hold your life in my arms, as memories of you gather around me,  singing to me in time with the gentle waves lapping at my feet, while the pining seagulls drift on the arctic winds of winter overhead, I imagine the winds blowing down from Ireland today,  I don't know if that's even true. But this is an ode, and we're Irish, so we can say whatever we want to. I will stand by the sea today and watch... the melding colours of aqua depths, swirl, unfettered and free, as I write something new in my head, to take home to the table where I will sit, and think about the books and songs I have yet to write, the stories and

 I need to stay off "the net"- it gets dark out there, and not, "the darknet", the everyday posts that pop up and up and up, and sometimes bring you down, like "IT" the scary clown. Because there was this post I saw today, it  did quite take my breathe away. There was this lady in a wedding dress,  and in her post this is what she said, "I'm waiting for a bridegroom,  as soon as his wife drops dead; or the casualty of a recent divorce, some lucky chap to fill my bed." Yes, I know my fellow reader, my mouth it fell to the floor, I wish that was the end of it, but sorry,  there was more. The post it was on facebook,  it was public for all the world to see, the lady had tagged a hoard of people, and one of them was me. I don't know why she tagged me, I have no husband, I'm alone, but maybe she thought if she threw it out there, her post would lure some poor guy home. I don't mean to be bitchy, that's not my intention here, but as

 There are guests around my house, popping up in my life, slipping through the cracks, well, what do you think about that? Sitting outside the door,  springing up on the pathways, choking the flowers, smothering the seeds, sucking precious life, and water from their stems. ⚘🥀 Slipping through life, weeds uninvited and not wanted, they are there before you know it, no warning, blimming pests, damnit, they gotta go, they're spoiling the show, and I never asked them to come round here, I can't believe they even dare. (damnit) 💥💦 So I wring their necks, I drag them out,  I kick their butts until they shout, ignoring their cries, I bid them goodbye, tossing their carcasses, on a bonfire that I've made,  and it's very high! For even Jesus warned of those little chokers, he said 'get rid of those interferring blokers'. I'll heed his words, he knows what he's on about, wisdom from above, without a doubt. 💖😇 So weeds are out, life is in. Sunshine welcome and

Dad - 1983 I'm feeling a bit Oirish today, perhaps because I am a little bit; my grandpa was one, an Irishman, and my dad and all his cousins, and all my cousins, on that side, they were Irish too, especially all the ones up North. How we loved one another, precious clan we were and still are, forever and ever. But this is about my da. I never called him that, he was Daddy for a long time, longer than most girls called their dad, daddy, at least not round me, not in public. Then he was MY DAD, big, strong, clever, telling stories..all the time. Mum called it yakking, while we sat in the car, waiting for "your father". He was always my father when she was pissed off, other times he was, "getyourdad", when she needed help. He was, "where's dad", screamed in panic, when I needed help, or just Daaaaad wheeerrrre arrrrrrrre you!? I was always darling to him. Our Father, who art in Heaven, we pray earnestly in times of need. What would dad say to me, I a

                                        U2 tribute to the 51 victims from their 2019 NZ concer t   27 August 2023 Today will mark the three year anniversary for the sentencing of New Zealand's worst terrorist, and the biggest mass murderer in our history. Those killings are now sadly recalled as "The Christchurch Mosque Shootings".  Fifty one people lost their lives that day and many more were injured. Families were destroyed by loss, trauma, grief and for some there was a financial loss almost as hard to bare as the life of their loved one. "19 minutes of terror", was one headline. 19 minutes took away thousands of years of human life and thousands more to come. On that terrible day, Friday 15 March 2019, I lost a lifelong friend of over 35 years. My heart was broken so badly when I found out that she had died, I could barely breath. I could hardly grieve, the shock was so appalling. I could not even begin to imagine how such a terrible thing could have happene

 I think its time,   to write something new,  less heavy, more healing, fresh verses of light and remembrance, a sharing of specialness, and f**king positivity. Did you like that? Did you laugh?  Can you read up there? The stuff I write for you down here. Down here where we live without you. Sorry, positive wins the day. Or can you hear us up there? I bet you can. Do you get out? Can you come back? Does God ever let you roam around Earth-eavesdropping and watching. I bet He does. We can't see you, just so you know. And all the boxers are gone now, but you probably know that. They'll be all living with you up there,  fighting for the couch, tearing up possums, getting fat on heaven's good kai, sleeping and snoring while you play music. I bet strings never break on the guitars in heaven. And there's quite a few of your mates with you now. I can almost hear the never ending joyous music you must all be playing... I miss you all, I miss those jams. I still go the cemetery w

  It is still with some surprise that I wake each morning to find I am living with a bellbird; one who still sometimes roosts at night in the peach tree outside my bedroom window and chatters to me in the mornings. She always starts with song, waiata, and karakia, prayer, before she begins our daily discourse while I sip coffee from my favourite mug, ironically, a ceramic cup made by a local potter with a tui on the side. “Drink from me,” the mug sings to me each morning, alongside a boiling, hissing kettle as I cast my eye over my true favourite, a cream mug embossed with gold dots and a capital “M” for Mere on it that  my grandson, Rawiri, had given to me last Christmas. Shortly after I had purchased my little cottage near the bush that overlooked Bethells Beach, "m y bellbird", as I now think of her, had flown onto my  bedroom windowsill one morning while I sat in bed reading the online news, checking emails and sipping coffee. There was a bowl of chopped fruit beside me.

In the foamy and rowdy wake from the resignation of our esteemed leader, PM Jacinda Adern, I have been imagining to myself how a modern-day epistle from Saint Paul, the new testament letter writer would read. Bearing in mind that Paul was a learned man, well studied in theology, a social commentator for his time and an accurate essayist of the political and cultural climate, plus and advocate for the disadvantaged and certainly not a misogynist. A man of relevance and intelligence, someone that I would enjoy a little chin wag with over a glass of Pinot Noir from a local vintner. Because it's the 21st century and I possibly face copyright issues in using Paul's name and title, the letter to the Aotearoans is written by Saint Millie of Pariri, as women can be Saints now, as well as Pastors, Vicars and Prime Ministers. They make damn fine ones too! Of course we have yet to see the feminine grace sit in the big chair at the oval office but let's hopes she black, and a liberal C