Voyagers

Born in Rarotonga, Cook Islands in July 1975, Audrey Teuki Tetupuariki Tuioti Brown is of Cook Island Maori and Samoan descent. She has a BA in sociology and political studies and is currently a diplomat with the Cook Islands High Commission in New Zealand. She was the writer for the short film The Cat’s Crying, screened on TVNZ’s Tagata Pasifika programme in 1995, and assisted in the production of the experimental film The Rainbow in 1997–98. Her poetry was included in an exhibition catalogue produced by the Australian Centre for Photography in 1998 and in the 2002 New Zealand Fringe Festival performance, The Past with the Present: Teuki, joint winner of the Festival’s Spoken Word Award.In 2002 Audrey’s first collection of poetry, with the visual images and design of Cook Island artist Veronica Vaevae, was published by Steele Roberts in Threads of Tivaevae: Kaleidoskope of Kolours.

local tourist on a bus ride home

cool breeze sweeping sweet sweat of sadness
(through the cold hot air of the open closed window)

look                    “sweet-e”
                           not with your i i dar-ling

?                         (anonymous object sits silently inside palm of her head)

the mist kisses the mountains
the mountains kiss the sky
                                              coloured pockets of green & gold & blue
                                              sing her a familiar song she thought she could never understand

(fault?)                                  Tuatua maori                                          no
                                              church                                                      no
                                              hula                                                          kare?

echoed an even more familiar voice inside her head 2 herself
                                                                                                    the bird flies over the sun
                                                                                                    the sun flies in2 the sea
thoughts (r) / evolve as the km (s) clock from papa joe’s watch & the o-do-me-ter
of the yellow – yellow/jam packed/yellow/jam packed bus

                                                                                (on the 1/2 hr anti-clock-wise of course)

10         9          8         7          6          5          4 …………………………………..............

watch the c                                                              through the trees
                                                                                 through the houses

through the stones that paint each stop with a story of a somebody
a n d   a   s o m e w h e r e   t h a t   a   s o m e o n e ( s )   s t i l l   l o v e s……………...…

can u c
                                                           as they pass her-story in arorangi & tupapa………...
 

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Last updated 04 July, 2004