Deb Curreen Author

 this feels like nowhere, and home my new vista, this strange beach with it's brown sand, brown rocks, latte chopped up waters and little waves on windy days, like today. the crumbling cliffs tower over me tossing the odd rock in my path, roots bare against the sky exposed and dangling as if they're trying to frighten me. i just leap from rock to rock, dodging the sharp mouths of oysters budding mussels beside murky rock pools that  look bloody cold if i lost my grip and fell into their shallow silence. It feels like home, but nowhere, this deserted beach with warm grey rocks beneath luscious, watchful pohutakawa branches, majestic and safe as the sky above me, and I think I might just love it here.

                                                        Photo: Hugh O'Connor - "8 good reasons"  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 sta...

 the words of winter, hang, stay, freeze, warm stay again. my friend wrote about seasons, winter was long, and frost creeps into my brain, cartoon icy fingers, long and grey-blue, like icicles in the morning. Brittle, cold to touch, avoid if you can. 💘💙💥💦💟🐞🍀 I spent winters away from home, water pipes froze, fires stuttered and I did not have enough socks to cover my toes. I never imagined chills like this inside my bones startling my brain. Winter wass human fog stealthily invading your home at night. 💦💟🐞🍀💘💙💥 Alas, it ends. The friend who lives with us, first uninvited, then welcomed in all it's magnaminous glory, white-cold dawns, with clear blue days, that gently follows us about ... the silent companion, whispering promises of Spring, bring bright flowers and heady fragrances... until finally we cheerily wave, "Good-bye Winter," and secretly wish it doesn't come back too soon.

                                                 Image by  Giani Gheorghe  from  Pixabay  I have a friend, she's a Collapsologist, and before you laugh... there's such a thing they are for real, and here's what they do- measure the state of the Earth's collapse. I have a compassion certificate, it's real too. It says something like, I'm nice to everyone, all the time, day or night, it makes no difference. Collapse and compassion, they both get close to danger, they both get shot at, and the world still crumbles at their feet. "We have to take that danger shot," I tell my friend, as she crouches on the beach, measuring the rate of seaweed death. She picks up plastic rubbish when I go to feed the homeless, I pick up lives. Collapsologists help the planet to breathe, I help humanity eat. "The world is crying out for rescue," says my friend, the Co...

 I refuse to rant and get on the internet for a good old moan, or stay home laminating the state of a crumbling world as fresh rain masks the sun, and liberty begins to drown a little more each day. I won't waste my words on all the crooked politics the holey roads, not the God-kind of holy, the rip- off bloody supermarkets where wild dogs circle  hunger flaming from red eyes. in this wintery, nostril dripping weather that lurks outside my window, as hope sleeps fitfully in my doorway. I'll retire my TV to the dump, it can live there with all the other breaking news woes, while I unsubscribe from "headlines" and updates. I refuse to rant and lament, scroll and extoll about the coming doom or hide inside my room... while the world goes wild around me. I'm going to the beach to sip a cup of ocean, inhale the waves, scroll the horizon for cloud updates  as the autumn drizzle dampens my forehead, old tears and sweat rolling down my cheeks and off my shoulders. I thank...

  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 to our dearly departed lifted away into the skies   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.

My loving, big, funny brother        Native bird painting by Ezra Curreen                                                                                               When my brother died, we were all bereft. My whole family, extended whanau, friends and strangers near and far, were overnight, plunged into unbearable sadness and shock. The trauma lasted for years. My big, strong brother was gone. Life had become too hard for him, so he drove to his favourite beach, one night and ended his life. Quietly and gently. He was gone. In the immediate hours and days after his death, as we gathered at our family home to bid him farewell, his friends told stories about him. Funny stories I had never heard before. Hair-raising antic...

I don't watch a lot of news, anymore... or read a paper with bold headlines, beating me about the face with gloom, death ricocheting around the globe, storming my brain, filling the air that I breathe which creates a world of pain, for life as we now know it. ❤😒🌠🌋🐸 It makes me blue, the news... red with anger,  black with sadness,  as real life images from the battlefields of families, struggling in the furnace of affliction, bombard me,  until it feels like the end of the world inside my soul. So I quit the news, for golden snatches of peace in my heart... gathering like autumn leaves on the earth, sending glittering rays of hope and solace into my mind. I've blocked that drain, the  misery they call news... with carefree trips to the ocean, walking in the hills, picking handfuls of freesias,  with their heaven sent fragrance that floods my house. I have filtered my internet letterbox, halting the scourge of alerts and highlights. I play gentle music of the...

I have just watched the Dylan movie, starring Timothee Chalamet, “A Complete Unknown.” I enjoyed hearing those old songs again and getting a bit more context of their creation, having been a Dylan fan since last century, songs that I have loved for many a year. The movie celebrated his musical success while only briefly touching on his formative years and significant relationships with women, notably Joan Baez but also, for the first time we see the complicated and doomed affair with Sylvie. Dylan read the movie script right through, met with the director to discuss the narrative and add some of his own before gave it the nod saying, "Go with God". Whether he has viewed the movie, to date, I do not know. Remember this is the man that famously won the Nobel Peace Prize  in Literature 2016, “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition”, then did not go to the award ceremony to receive his fabulous prize.  Bob Dylan has always been inte...

Wolves run at night, foxes swing from vines, thieves leave no traces, cameras missed their faces. I'm gonna blame the moon for all this, and I'm sorry, it's not really her fault, or his fault,  or theirs'  or even the mist that fell on our town this morning. 💗💘💙💚💛💜 But something nasty, this way has come, sparing few,  thrashing some, leaving tears in the gutter, making heros stutter. A shake of the head, nightmares in bed. It might be more than the moon this time, with wicked people,  marching in lines. 💔💀👽👿💥💦💦😟 The weirdness isn't over, the nasty just begun, spreading through the planet, mankind is undone. It's really not the moon's fault, a waning globe up there, it's mostly about the power struggles going on down here. I am really lost for words right now, I think this poem is done, I'm going to take a wander outside, and have a quiet lie-down in the sun.

 The colour has been stolen from my garden, the painters are to blame with their splotches and swatches of paint everywhere, masking the sunlight, blanketing the flowerbeds. The whole world is fading, and society needs an overhaul. A top story in the London papers reads, "I had casual sex for a whole year!" Really?! A grown-up woman said that, in the newspaper that will wrap my fish and chips tomorrow. Ugh! Morality is wilting beside the colorless flowers in my garden. Meanwhile, a dignitary has died. And just like unemployment, early childhood injuries are on the rise, The economy is receeding, while fast food chains and beauty salons flourish. Nobody says sorry anymore. I watch the painters sidle from my yard, closing the freshly painted black door behind them. They stole the colour from my garden,  and they didnt even say good-bye. So, I chew on yesterday's sausage roll, sharing it with my loyal dog. "I'm sorry," I say, patting her head. "I wish ther...