Deb Curreen Author

 Currently the world is divided in many ways. We have the two sides of politics raging in every country around the world, with racism or cultural differences being big voting cards. Religion is a big deal, especially with the war in Gaza/Israel, with the "right wing radicals" and "liberal lefties".  The radicalness of either side or party, differs from country to country though they both sharing an ever increasing violence and hatred towards each other. The personal opinions and preferences held by people are causing huge strains, making it harder to "love thy neighbour as thyself", when our neighbour is so different from us. The mainstream media, i.e. TV, newspapers, etc. send mixed messages like never before, depending which paper your read or channel you watch. But now we have social media with it's hinky algorithms that constantly bombard and dictate our "feeds" with updates, news and articles, a lot of it fake news and misleading titles ...

                                                        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...

  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...

 "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.