Birdpeoples make it to Te Rangi-i-Totongia-a-Tamatekapua - Carin Smeaton
david blaine where r u now cos i havent seen u since the symonds street off-ramp where i showed u a card trick or two & u recommended youtube talking bout friction levitating us back into the 90s our tūrangawaewae our stomping-ground bridge it was still open-access back then barrier free from glass fast & escape was way easy or at least inevitable visible to the naked eye an express flight to rangitoto 4 hauraki-healing if u made it that far (& not all bird-peoples did) tho when we did we all got the same dead gorgeous view same as any prophet who got lured away from her exodus hell by such dazzling balancing-acts stretchin it out til kingdom come & that is how u take yr mind off an emergency says david blaine on grafton bridge u dont see the drop see the vision the mission of possibility a future on valium vs a life at the lights stuck on red in the rain when u cross david blaine he got a way of possessing u watching u he’ll tap on yr window wit his deck o split spades he’ll take it away bleed into the fluorescent night of moon where my birdwoman once flew my rona in blu rising above rangitoto
Lucky Country - Carin Smeaton
she’s not entirely alone she still got the lorikeets outside in the flowering elms chattering away at 40 degrees waiting for the rain and judy & john hav been trying take her mind off things they go on and on til sundown bout refugees and free social services let the floodgates open they mock then sigh how can they hold their head high when they get nuthin but a clit kiwi pension they go it’s not fair in australia but she just bites her lip and swallows it dry like a griffins wine-biscuit theyr no socialists not like poppy he’d give em an earful if he was here in mind
good thing her bp’s low so low sometimes she think the lorikeets cud pretty much carry her away outta this world into the next whenever they wanted wit nuffink but a molecule noticing her shadow on the ground da sky spinnin around she misses the rain she still loves a good stiff gin but not as much as how she loved poppy wen he was a dirty old man wit an enormous atomic cock he’d grab her ass in light n dark ( in the days wen he knew where he was)
life’s for the living (siale says siale knows) but it dont need no reason jus oxygen and a host of its own to grow like the tomatoes on the road sproutin up out of concrete cracks commando where her & poppy go walking most days he’s most lucid first light but it’s uphill from there and it’s thumbs down for respite cos he dont wanna go the parrots tell her so he only wants to be wit her & no one else will do
now she wears the crimson streak of a lorikeet lighting its way across her skin watching her cross the street everyday everyone knows everyone sees where his nails hav been stuck into her gin n tonic hit wrists (cos he dont wanna lose her when the sky finally folds) squeezin the veins of her lov 4 him how she hates the smell of old man he used to taste of nectar she says but now he smells of old vegetable she mutters of curses n mothballs medicated sweat and broccoli
Contributor's Note
Carin lives in Tamaki Makaurau with her children Yuga and Kazma. Her first book Tales of the Waihorotiu was published in 2017 by Titus.