Iona Winter

Category: Aotearoa

  • resonate

    your gaze references inherant mirrors and sonorous caverns of forgotten lovers faint echoes engraved in the bedrock   your words glide willingly subcutaneous breath resonates off damp walls and i recognise sanctuary lies within  

  • voice

    your voice holds mine within time, place, land and sea illuminate awakened shadow selves fit seamless constellations hands memorised no expectation freedom inside our conscious touch your voice holds mine within

  • Marks

    We met at the pub. Next morning, he suggested breakfast, ‘Eggs?’ I cooked, we ate and he disappeared.   But he’d marked my neck with a crown-shaped bruise. Then I couldn’t sleep much.   So I visited Granny, and her lush herb garden. Granny says in a past life she…

  • Splintered

    The dawn chorus today sounded agitated. I lay in bed and listened before opening my eyes. Autumn is upon us. Sunrise comes slower now, with its apricot-pink fingers. Beyond the birds I heard chainsaws, down at the foreshore. They’d said the pines were to be felled, citing erosion and safety.…

  • Lost Marbles

    My Grandfather sleeps a lot these days. When he’s awake he repeats the same questions, or remembers random facts from the past. “I owned a Chevrolet Impala in 1967.” Way before my time. He lost his marbles, searching for words that had always been abundant in forthcoming. Then my Grandmother…

  • quiet

      i am  rinsed clean by the currents deep-blue-green-water-clarity tethered far below like a buoy the weight soon slips quiet from my shoulders i wait back against the clay face outwards to the wind rinsed clean

  • I’m going to Edinburgh

    Mōrena WordPress Whānau, (Morning WordPress Family), That’s right. I’m going to Edinburgh to present and participate in the ‘Unbound’ finale event at the Edinburgh International Book Festival in August. How amazing! And I feel completely humbled, blessed and privileged to have been asked to go.  As a writer from Ōtepoti, Dunedin, Aotearoa, New…

  • reminder

    i’d forgotten there could be security in a single bed tucked up, flannel sheets, hot-water-bottle-sweaty-warmth seeping through me sometimes we don’t realise how far we’ve come until a friend reminds us that we are safe these days tucked up in a single bed for the night

  • limits

    most days i witness stories of horror from those who survive it i avoid the media because i have limits so when you ask have i heard about such and such and my face resembles a blank page i hope you can realise there are limits to how much i can hear, see or touch in one day

  • te reo māori

    i’m grateful i was taught te reo māori as a kid and had my bum kicked figuratively if i got pronunciation wrong we take our shoes off so we don’t trek any tiko inside ngā whare metaphorically i cringe when people say ‘leave them on’ or utter words badly because that’s how they’ve ‘always’ said them i know the reactions when i do the…