Short Story accepted by Verandah

Hi,

I received an exciting email last week telling me that Verandah 24 has accepted a short story of mine for publication! I'm very thrilled and promise to report back about the launch. I can't wait :)

Here is another poem for you.
Cheers,
Deb :)


Thirty-something limbo

When I’m old
I’ll go walking
like I did
as a child,
if I can still get up
if my knees don’t creak
if my back doesn’t ache.

When I’m old
I’ll have the time
to read the books
I should have read
in my youth
and I’ll regret
the lost opportunity
at wisdom.

When I’m old
I’ll get rid of knickknacks
and surround myself
with photographs.
I’ll never watch television,
I’ll see arthouse films.
I’ll remember to breathe
and appreciate
and laugh.
I’ll have long philosophical discussions
with dear old friends,
over tea on the porch.
I’ll wake up early
just to hear birds sing.

And I’ll lament my missing youth
and wish
I was too busy again
for walks and books,
talks and friends.

she

Hi everyone,

Hope you're all well. Here's a poem I've been working on for a while. I keep putting it away, bringing it back out, changing things & putting it away again. One day it might be 'finished' whatever that means...

Cheers,

Deb

she

Who is she

depressing and ordinary?

She’s not me,

I’m unique and contrary

I never say die.

Not like her,

defeat in her eyes.

Resignation,

acceptance.

Not me,

I’m still fighting

raging at injustice.

Fierce

teeth bared,

a snarl, not demure smiles.

No batting eyelids,

no sideways glance,

coy looks, romance,

heart aflutter.

Leave me

to my guttural cries.

Realise.

A Poetic Achievement

I recently entered a poem that has featured here in a competition run by DeScribe a Deakin University Writers' Group. The competition was organised in conjunction with Verandah, Deakin's literary journal, and was judged by the Verandah editors and "Little Pig" came in Runner Up.

I have never won anything with my poetry before so this is a very exciting moment for me!

Cheers,

Deb

Dark places and shadows

Here's a poem from a while ago. It's one of those ones that when I read it now it makes me think, "Gee, who wrote that? Couldn't be me, makes my skin crawl a bit." I'm not really sure where it came from, one of those dark places we all have I suppose...

On a pleasant note, I have my first 'follower'! (Sounds rather cult-ish doesn't it?) How exciting. Hello, Mara, thanks for joining.   :)

Cheers,

Deb

corner shadows

cowering in the corner

of our winter’s discontent

lime legs spider-crawl

creating elongated silhouettes

flies stick in honey and eyes

nose

mouth

open hunger creeping in the shadows

elusive sleep shivers

a death rattle, maybe

later buried in a pine box

scratching at the corners

fingernails

splinters

tips numb, rubbed raw in a frenzied effort

a dash for freedom

dashed hopes and resignation

crumpled

in the corner

Nikaura Nakamal & Kava

Nikaura

The low thunk – thunk – thunk is reassuring. It means the kava I have been invited to share at the nakamal tonight is being pounded rather than prepared in the more stomach-churning traditional method.

The nakamal in the village of Nikaura, Epi Island, Vanuatu, is a nakamal in the original sense. Unlike the “nakamals” in Port Vila, the country’s capital, which are no more than kava bars, Nikaura’s acts as a public hall, an overflow church, the village court and an education centre. It is also somewhere for the men to meet, when the sun dips behind the volcanic hills that flank the village, and drink kava.

The men sit around the wide opening to the building, or in the open window frames either side of the central doorway. The walls are constructed of rough, upright tree

 fern logs built around a frame that will stand the test of time, space, any dimension you want to throw at it. And I wonder where the crane came from to lift the roof beams into place.

“No, mifala liftem evriwan*,” replies my guide, Joshua, “We sing them, we sing the wood to make it light.” [* No, we lifted all of it.]

The women weave the thatch for the expansive roof but otherwise are not involved in nakamal-building. There are some clear distinctions between men’s and women’s business in Vanuatu, the strictness of which depends on where you are. In Nikaura, women do not generally drink kava. Being a white woman I am not only exempt; I am also a special guest and therefore expected to participate when invited.

The thunk – thunk – thunk continues in the dusk, as the mosquitoes begin biting and the changing tide turns up the volume of the waves. The squeals of children playing in the shallows and running barefoot on the coral beach carries up into the cooler darkness of the nakamal. The men talk quietly; in Bislama to me, in local language to each other. They have spread out a pandanus mat for me to sit on and I have respectfully chosen to wear a garishly coloured island dress.

I am thankful for the sound of pounding kava because the traditional method is to have young boys chew and spit out the root of the plant used to make the narcotic drink before it is soaked in water and strained through a cloth. It is the muddy-looking solution that is drunk as kava. It tastes similar to how it looks, although the visual image cannot prepare you for the bitterness, or how it might catch in the back of your throat, or how your gag reflex may respond to such a foreign encounter. All of these reactions are heightened if you know it has been in someone else’s mouth already.

Of course, you take the good with the bad. Kava is a relaxant and you may find it gives you the opportunity to recline on a pandanus mat, contemplate some amazingly large nakamal roof beams and wonder,

“Just where did they get the crane?”

Little pig, little pig...

Here's another of the poems I was working on earlier on the year. I presented it at the reading I was part of and I've since sent it off to a journal... I'm still waiting to hear. I thought I would share it here in the meantime.

Cheers,
Deb
________

Little Pig, Little Pig...

There was a fourth little pig
a ‘black sheep’ the others don’t like to talk about
didn’t buy a bundle of twigs
or even straw
certainly wasn’t into conventional bricks and mortar.

Instead he wove around himself
walls of words
in the fashion of a wordy igloo.
Transparent passages formed windows,
dark thoughts became heavy drapes to cover them
and keep out peering Curiosity.

And far from being blown away by the ravenous Wolf
the little pig lived safely cocooned
in stories,
keeping the world at bay.
All potential intruders began reading
and before they knew it they were searching
to find out how it ends.

Looping calligraphy papered the walls
of his imagination-warm living room
and the fourth little pig reclined
hidden
behind bewitching literature,
writing poems in the air
to keep the Wolf out.

Fires - Saturday 7th Feb, 09

I don't want to write very much about the fires, there are already so many stories out there much more important than mine. My role was a very small one; as a member of the Mt Camel Brigade of the CFA, I joined a stike team to patrol the town of Wandong on Sunday night. It was already dark when we arrived and it was difficult to understand how much damage had been done. I wrote the following poem as we left the town via the Hume Hwy just before dawn.


Wandong early Monday 9/2/09

The predawn light
makes the white gum trunks
stand starkly from the dark
silhouette of leaves
and ground

Amongst them there are
houses
with only a slight
shift in their shape
no lights in the windows

The predawn tells
a kinder story than
the one we are going
to hear
because when dawn
breaks
the blackness remains
and the shapes don't
shift back