"What to do when the ******* is gone" is in the latest issue (The Romance Issue) of Popshot Magazine: The Illustrated Magazine of New Writing with beautiful illustrations by Michael Parkin.
A few of my photographs in the 2018 Kiwi Diary. Courtesy of Rēkohu (Chatham Island).
You can purchase a copy via Etsy x
what.a.night.
Port Hutt
I take my Aunty to see the shipwrecks at Port Hutt
When we close the truck doors, small birds fly away from the top of a caravan without wheels
There’s three of them, I say as we drive down towards the coast
One lies next to the wharf; its flaking pale blue exterior betrays the rot.
The other, further down the beach, is a meeting spot for birds.
The third adorns the tired shore across the bay.
Look, hon. She says, after some time sweeping her hands across the detritus.
She is turning a piece of paua shell in her fingers.
A bird flies over our heads.
You could never replicate those colours, she is saying, never reproduce them in any kind of art form.
But all I can see is how much her hands look like mine.
Please keep this for your records
Will be the name of my first collection of poetry
I recently saw the phrase on some official-looking documents and thought yes
that is it
I like the sound of the words together
Please and keep
For and your and
Two r’s together
Matches made in assonistic lyrrical heaven
Please, keep this for your records.
If you know me, you know
How I feel
About
Records
About
Photocopies of photocopies of photocopies
About
The weight of documents made in triplicate.
This is because I was a lawyer in a past life
Who had nightmares about the after-death-wishes of certain clients
and sharp triangles made of folded parchment
and shredded paper colour streamers that would only ever decorate
the insides of locked red-lidded wheelie bins
That is, until I ran away to Europe
And was reincarnated at the East London Buddhist Centre
Where I began to write poems in my head when I should have been meditating
Tsk, Tsk,
Breathe in, breathe out
Cultivate loving kindness
(And remember to write that down)
Please - keep this for your records
This is kind of funny
Because I have a box full of journals with most of the pages blank but for black lines making cages
And I call myself a recycler
This is kind of funny
Because it is all digital these days anyway, isn’t it?
And I still have a bulging plastic concertina file playing the same old shit just
in different keys with different letterheads and different dates
This is kind of funny
Because I both want you to and don’t want you to read the thing and/or keep it
Just put a line through the one you don’t want to choose, okay?
Fuck it.
Everybody already knows that all the good stuff – the what-they-call “juicy bits” happen off the record,
anyway.
Still. Please. KTFYR.
Inspired by Megan (at The Scent of Water) to take these foraged pieces from their natural surroundings and experiment a little.
Nga mihi tino nui, Lois and whanau. This place is something special.
Aldous Harding is my fave. Watching her play at Blue Smoke in February was one of those rare occasions where I felt like I'd experienced something potent and precious - like seeing a fantail in the trees above your head moments before it darts away somewhere out of sight. I won't attempt to describe the music itself; it'd be almost as bad as that there simile (sorry team, its been a day). Her second album Party comes out in May.
Get it.
"And once the storm is over you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won't be the same person who walked in."
Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore
Raumati - 2016-2017.
