Deb Curreen Author

 "Last glass of karma, anyone?" the waiter formly known as 24 asks us. "I'll have one," I signal to 25. "Will that be with or without a slice of lemon?" "Depends?" Is it sour? I wonder to myself, questioning the universe, and God above, that laughing bitch called Life, and the Mistress of Karma. "Could I have a cherrie instead?" 25 nods. A sweet one please, I murmur to the burnt grass roots beneath my vegan sandals. Just joking. My sandals aren't vegan,  neither are my intentions. The burnt grass bothers me though. It didn't deserve this...this burning. How innocent is the grass and the planet? Gaza, the Ukraine, the homeless on the Auckland streets and Americans who got duped into voting for an orange man, instead of a black woman. I might skip the glass of Karma. "Give me whiskey on the rocks, smooth ones,"  I say, "the rocks and the whiskey." I anoint my heart with oakiness and settle back to wait for ...

 The cattle on a thousand hills  nestle against silent macrocarpa limbs as dusk creeps over the horizon. My gaze lingers on a settled harbour boats nodding in the last rays of the day, dogs bark from a distant farm,  drowning out the turkeys warble. 💖💥💧💦🐂🐑🐝 See you in the morning, hills of grace, skies of serenity, waters of friendship. Wake me up life, in all your fullness, with deep cups of caffeine in the dawn's parting light, as I bid a hearty good night, to the last glass of Shiraz.

 I might not see you again, for awhile, living a big wide ocean apart. But I enjoyed our korero, round the table at Taemaro Bay, post Christmas,  on a rainy Boxing Day. You might not like Chardie, I don't know, but I got a fancy bottle of the stuff for Christmas, so I'd like to think that we'd have a glass of Chardonnay, or maybe two, before you go. Thanks to you, I'll never spread my toast with bitterness, on special occasions or any time that matters. I'll keep eating my fried bread with jam, forget the kina splatter. And your stories gave me much to think about, that will stay...not just in the Bay, but in my brain and in my heart, something to write about while you're away. I might not see you again, Rick, as we're worlds and oceans apart, me at my writing desk, you in your salon making hair art. But just before you go, if you would like to, let me know. Let's toast with one last glass of Chardonnay, as we farewell the year and beautiful Taemaro Bay.

  I don’t think it’s a good idea to give bad drivers in Kaitaia, the finger. Nor curse them under my breathe, using the biggest swear words I know. Plotting to find where they live and letting their tyres down, is also a bad idea. I also know that dialling star 555, is wasting my time. I don’t think that every bad driver in Kaitaia is a strung-out crack head, driving an unregistered, unwarranted car; that the driver has no licence. That would be making a snap judgement on a total stranger. Sometimes “bad drivers” are old people, hearing impaired, foreigners, learners who’ve sneaked out in their parents’ cars or even me! Because the other day I drove through a pedestrian crossing in PaknSave where a lady was pushing her trolley. I bet she cursed me, using   big gest swear words. But maybe she blessed me,   hoping I wasn’t on crack because I   looked like a nice lady. Didn’t I? Although my car could be mistaken for an unregistered, unlicenced bomb. It’s always di...

Feminists are currently fighting their big girl pants off  to keep the ground they have  hard won over several decades. Donning big boots,  off they go again to fight another fight, a bit more weaponised than 50 years ago, but still in fear and trembling of what the future may hold for their daughters, granddaughters, sisters, friends. It's disheartening to hear our sisters are still chanting and waving placards that say, "My body, my rights, my decision....my life." I read one statement that said, "Woman's rights ARE human rights." Whoever said that women aren't human? What a travesty and at guess, the chauvinist men in power still making decisions for women that suit men. Or just power hungry blokes trying to teach us a lesson, "put us in our place."  I was pondering the biblical view of women and the disrespect and mistreatment goes right back to the Garden of Eden, when Adam, on being sprung eating the fruit that he had been told not to, sa...

FEMINISM -    the belief in social, economic, and political  equality  of the sexes. Although largely originating in the West, feminism is  manifested  worldwide and is represented by various institutions committed to activity on behalf of  woman's rights and interests. Just for something different, I thought I would tackle one of society's biggest sacred cows, feminism. Note, sacred cow, not bull, though some of those bulls might get knocked out during my musings - using strong words, of course, not bullets. I grabbed this simple definition of feminism from the Britannica site, hopefully a woman wrote it but it seems to sum it all up in a few brief sentences - social, economic, political equality and the right to make decisions regarding healthcare, our bodies, employment opportunities, etc. All the things our strong matriarchs have fought for and won in the past 100 years or more. Women now have a stronger voice, and we may even see a woman Pr...

 Pohutukawa. Tree of life. Beautiful and grand, idling in the light of approaching dusk, standing sentient, watchful, a guard beside the ocean's shore You hold the pulse of the moon and sea in your arms, the carefree waves that carry salty promises to thee. I stand on shaky rocks. Oh wide and curling waters, I'm at your mercy. I pray under a silent sky of blue. waiting for answers in the shadows,  tangled in the dappled branches, as I clutch the rustling leaves of the Pohutukawa. Tree of  Life.

  In the scrappiness of winter there is beauty in the garden, glowstick bursts of colour, as if Heaven herself has painted the earth this morning, reflections of hope, inklings of spring. I look to the skies and I see a rainbow of happiness beaming beneath the heavy clouds with a promise of more sun shinings  for the morrows yet to come. I praise winter for the rains while birds sing in barren trees joyous and alive grateful that worms still wriggle and bugs still crawl so there is breakfast again this morning. Yes, the mud still puddles and the clouds try to frown while the clouds begin to part and I wear gumboots outside searching for hope and glory, again, amongst the scrappiness of winter in the garden.

 The skies outside are burning, the grass on my lawn has been swallowed by Mud. Down the road, there are highways of mayhem, bolts of public opinion jam the flyovers, thoughts are rear-ended by vehicles of outrage every day, bottlenecks of conflict and arguments. There is an acceleration of madness in the world right now, coming to a town near you. 🌘🔥💣💔😓🌵🐞🐸💥🌒🌈 Screens flicker all day long with ultra-violent beams of mottled truths and sticky facts, brainwashing dialogues roll up and down  blurring our vision. Accelerated madness sashaying daily in the pockets of our youth,  swinging in the handbags of middle age, sliding across the dashboard of the uber I now sit in. Pop goes the weasel of reason.                                                           🌘🔥💣💔😓🌵🐞🐸💥🌒🌈 However.... on the flipside of chaos where...

  As sure as the Iris smiles in my garden, is my promise to send you her face. As she beckons the sun to come down upon the Earth,  to pull out the colours,  that's when I will call, "Whaea, the winter has gone, come see the spring." The moment I see the gold unfurl amongst the green  with emboldened stems painting serenity for me, and for you I will  fast-post pics of her happiness to your home. Faith hope and love, the greatest of these, love, while iris faces glow in the storms of life. Here is hope, whaea, for a day without clouds and a Heaven come to earth in the faces  of our garden flowers.

It's your birthday today, you would have been 70 and it feels ridiculous now to think about all the mad things that we did when we were young, but hey, I've penned a few words for you, sprinklings of love, like toppings on a donut, Lashings of jam on pikelets, a cool ginger ale at the end of a spring night. Because my heart leaked on the pages for you, when you went away, snatched from us, one terrible Friday in March 2019, just before my birthday (which was two Saturdays later). That month feels ruined now but still, I have the chaos of colour that was you, the joyful noise that filled a room from your lips, memories locked down, inside my heart. 💘💚🍩🍉🐞🐸🐝 I run out of words, trying to capture you, I wrote a book (of poems) and dedicated it to you and gave you a whole chapter, at the back. 'cause while you were a front row diva, you rarked it up in the back - a Back Row Rebel. Lines for Lynn, Poems for Pikelet, a Shout for the Shaheed that you were. Now a void in the ...

Ban war and all who sail on that stinking, sinking ship of fools with muskets, swords, swearwords, filthy rum and murder. Those killers on every continent, waking at dawn, having a yawn, grabbing guns, making puns  about how many lives they're going to slay today. Bloody fools. They tried to ban the bomb, you know, decades ago, woman especially, didn't want to lose another son, another brother  or see their sister place the cap of widowhood  on her stooped and weeping head. "BAN THE BOMB" the masses shouted, flags, posters, banners touted, and the protesters marched and marched, for miles and days, wearing out footwear, their cries and the music, slowly gathering into a worldwide malaise. "Give peace a chance," John sang, we all sang too, clapping, chanting, hoping  praying. Come on and lay down your weapons, your nightmares of destruction, wrought by dirty rotten governments trying to rule the world and not save it. And we're all out of words as we pass...

 I miss Summer, with all her rays of warm sunshine, falling down on me, calling to me from the beach where the waters say, "swim, swim, catch this wave... and this one and this one",  while sand teases my toes beneath a cloudless sky of  happiness. "Come back Summer," I murmur and shiver beneath the heavy blankets of a winter morning, while the temperature reads 4 but feels like 2 degrees of "stay inside". It's still cold and dark out there, and the clouds have let the heat escape during the night. I think the sunshine has gone to Bermuda, kidnapped by the triangle. However will we ransom her back. Four degrees, feels like three, must be two. I'm not ready to go out into that day without the summer, my friend, my hot companion,  the season that makes life fun. "Please come back," I say, wiping the condensation from my eyes. "Drive the mud away, bring back the flowers." I miss you Summer, I say to myself, one last time, shaking m...

Look at the Liars, with their pants on fire. Serves you right, you human blight.   Taint on the horizon, sty in the eye; wrecking the day, with your pork pie lie.   Go reap bad karma! Get hit by a stone! Live your life with honesty, leave good people alone.   Look at the Liars with their pants on fire, shame about the hole in my bucket, or else I might have saved you – liar, liar.

I'm on another night out, in the local cafe, with my bestie, sipping wine, nibbling nibbles, missing a mate, lamenting her absence, scorning her loss, wondering what went wrong, with her. But She did post something that was private, about us, set to public "When it comes to friends, it's not all wine and roses, carrot cakes  and drunken choruses on a floating boat in the harbour," my Bestie said. "Sometimes pots get thrown, flowers die and the wine gives you a bloody headache." "The boat makes you seasick and there are sharks in the harbour," I offer, as I am pouring her more sparkling wine. Rose, the pink stuff, meant for holidays and chatty talk with "the girls". Not for funerals, and certainly not for a friend who posted something private, set to public "Babes can  be bitches," a stranger from another table chimed in. We looked askance at this someone new. She drank red. Serious about life then, or worked too hard, trying to...

Old friends is a place, in your heart, like battered suitcases, carried from town to town, to home and back. Full of pictures, laughter, sad times and wine with crackers, the tears from hard days and nights.   We carry old friends, never leaving them behind or in a dumpster, tied up in plastic sacks, driven away from and never looking back. We save that for enemies. Old friends come with us, wrapped carefully like precious bone china, stored in the cupboards of our heart and clearly labelled, Fragile.   One day we find them again, and we bring them out to wine and dine with again. We remember, oh we remember and it’s still too funny but not sad, well a bit. We are grateful that we lived, to watch another sun set, over another meal together. Sitting on the suitcases of our lives, unwrapping the precious and the fragile, comforted by the familiar, sharing the dust of lives thoroughly lived.

I swim in the waters of friendship,  letting their kindness wash o ver me, drinking the praise, eating the mem o ries, exquisite m o rse l s that I keep in a trinket b o x beside my bed-  la Familia What a bun fight at every Christmas, missed birthdays and never a call when I need y o u,  la Familia But still that bl o o d it sticks I find puddles in my kitchen, dr o ps in the trinket b o x, tang l ed in my hair, smeared  o n the wa l l s  o f my s o u l then s ometimes, the twain meet  Gentle  rivers meet the   o ceans on a quiet day, fresh water swirling into briny waves...la Familia...salt and light H20 meets plasma, night kisses day and sometimes the two become one. But not for long, la Familia with swords drawn, duels at dawn, bloody mess and mothers cry wet tears  as the clouds pull the ocean away from the river, memories wash out to sea and friends don't look back. Blood is no longer thicker than the waters that have become as bit...

I’ve been watching the news again on the terror-vision, the window of doom into my sitting room and I wonder if anywhere is sacred anymore.                                                 Do the sea lions know they are no longer protected?  that some fullah too fat to fish anymore is removing the protection from their lives, while children begin to starve on the playgrounds.                                                                                                  Who really cares? Shrugs a heartless coalition, as a couple of politicians turn their coats over on potholes, they’re never going to fix… and ...

  In 2019, I lost one of my best friends in the Christchurch mosque shooting. This is what the world is like now without her.  RIP Pikelet 💚💔 The light in my heart that was you There is a light in my heart, that searches for you, in a dark place of loss where the earth no longer holds colour, only shadows of a thousand yesterdays while faint laughter carries across eternity teasing my   memories.   The light in my heart listens, for that song rolling out on the radio, notes and lyrics pulling me back to those days of dancing, leaping, shouting, our spontaneity making the kitchen a dance floor of sweat, laughter, alcohol, heartbeats, more.   The light in my heart holds, my last email to you, the final poem I wrote, a shirt that you made for me, black and gold, too small now, and a handful of photos of you, always smiling, always dressed up, colourful and gay, happy beside me.   The light in my heart remembers, ...

 As I stand in the place of our meeting, in a paddock of winnowing golden grasses, summer winds stroke my arms, while tall and silent mountains smile down upon me, the whispering voices speak to my heart and as I it all comes back,  i feel everything.   I kneel beside a riverbed of yesterdays,  waiting at night for the ghosts to embrace me. Yet still I wonder.... How can I say good-bye to you? Every you and every day, all the moments held in crystal nights, a love that never left me, but has waited here until today. I am back in the town where we met, on the streets that melt with the summer sunshine of January and a new years day, with hallowed homes and winding driveways, where my feet tussle with the dust and memories of forty years  waiting for the return, Of you, and me. All that is mine, I have carried with me until now, and I can't quite stand, the stillness of all that ever was and can never be again, pulsing in the air that I can barely breathe, se...

 I have no self esteem... is a laughable line, from a terrible time, inside a dream that soon went dark, and I found my life and all that was dear, slide down the plughole, into a terrifying, nightmare. Like Stephen King had come to stay, bringing monsters that wanted to play, inside  my head and with my heart, as they messed  with my hopes my desires... they were running around,  all through the house  trying to turn my whole life into fire. I pushed them away, I closed the door, I forbade those creatures from crossing my floor. when down the chimney flew some bats, python snakes and tricked out cats. "We've come to take your esteem away, we're going to make your confidence pay." I looked at them, well fancy that, they'd pissed me off, I'd deal with that. I got my gun, I shot them down, their screams were heard all over town. "She's shooting bullshit," the locals said, "I hope she got them in the head." I sat down in my comfy chair, I ...

  I was going to Nelson and Golden Bay too, I was away for a week there  So I sent a message to you. "Hey Redneck, I'm doing a roadie I want you to come. Don't worry about money, I have plenty and some. (Well, not really that much, So when we sometimes do takeaways  perhaps we could go Dutch?!)  I booked you a ticket, for a ride on the plane, I'll meet you at the airport, you can't say no, you'd be insane. I've hired a comfy car, that will be taking us far, we'll go to Blenheim and Picton,' then down to Kaikoura! I'll show you the mountains,  the rivers and sea, hopefully whales, and the wildlife that runs free. Then over to Takaka and the beautiful Golden Bay, I'll show you all the places  where you're mum used to stay. All the homes and the houses, a commune or two, and even some campsites, where I slept beneath the moon. Then's it back to our cabin, in the bush, up a hill, nestled away, peacefully private and still. We'll go t...