Kia Ora,

My name is Tarah Rudolph-Ah kiau. I am of Maori, European and Samoan

descent. Born and raised in South Auckland I have gained most of my

influence from the flourishing cultures that engulf me in this

beautiful community, as well as this country's writers. I have been a

part of South Auckland Poets Collective for five months, which has

allowed me to showcase my poetry to the public gathering at Fresh

Gallery in Otara. Also I recently took part in both Poetry Idol and

the Montana Poetry Slam.

This Is My Full Mouth

This is my full mouth

Curling into a grin.

Look at my teeth

As they shine so bright

Like the Maclean's lady watching me as I wink at her.

These are my brown eyes, my Maori nose,

My sometimes white sometimes brown skin

These are my hands

Dancing around the circumference of my stomach.

These are my flat feet, my thick thighs

Pound the pavement

With power and strength.

These are ears as daintily posed

As the hibiscus in my hair.

This is my body

From the base of my neck

To the tips of toes.

From the arch of my back

To the curve of my breasts.

From the round of my butt

To the sparkle in my eyes.

These are my scars as pink as my lips

As pink as my toes,

As tender as my heart.

Watch my hair flows down the riverbank of my back

Curls cascade through silicon valleys,

Washing away billboards of Pantene Pro-V perfection.

Pushing them outwards, and upwards

Stretching to the stars

Singing adoration to the heavens

"Thank you Lord for this is me,

This is me"

Lighter Shade Of Brown

I am the lighter side of brown

Detached from the shadows of my ancestors,

I speak of a growing absence in a foreign tongue that should not be

understood in my homelands,

Yet I am Under-stood by everyone

And no one.

I know not.

I am apologetic, apathetic as I dare to stare across the room and not

know where I sit or stand.

I am holding my breathe in hopes that I pass out, so that they pass

over me and not see the ignorance that was bred in me,

It was my bread and milk for me.

I am reading, prying, trying to learn more from secondary records,

               Research the rights to sound less white.

But as I speak, my tongue flips out, trips me up,

And I am face down.

I am embarrassed that I am a disgrace,

"Girl you aint even a race."

The lighter side of brown

                               Left questioning who I am.

I am the darker side of white,

The tour guide that leads people to ask

"Babe, where you from?"

"Lady where were you born?"

I debate about Maori rights

                               political fights,

                                  Samoa's plight

Temuera's re-arrival to Shortland Street on a bike.

I am offended when I hear the white girl/boy on the street refer to

herself as a "nigger,"

And he says he hates the "coons."

I am trying to play it down to blend in

               But I amp it up with a Jeff the Maori impersonation.

I am dividing time between

               Whare and home

               Fale and house

               Suga, e kare, oh you...

So that I can slip into the right shape and colour at all the right times.

I am letting my curls ever expand,

So people are less likely to question

"You, whatever, the Islands?"

I am living off the experiences of my brown friends,

               So I am able to inter-grate and inter-relate and

hopefully inter-lace their race

               But this race leaves me out of breathe,

               In this undistinguishable place

               Looking at this face,

               Trying so hard to define... defy

Who am I?

I was born and raised in the southern streets of Auckland, New Zealand

Aukilani, Niu Sila

Tamaki Makaurau, Aotearoa

I was the brown face at the back, white face at the front

they called "half caste dirty arse"

Fuck you I'm "Half masked with a jaded past."

I will be that white light in a shaded room,

Dusky maiden married to the white groom.

I will never stop questioning

               asking for the rights as I put my multi-coloured-

hands in the various pot-luck dinners of my-self.

I will be grateful,

               I will be debate-ful

I will keep learning, yearning, earning

               Always turning over each side of my self to the sun,

               So when it is said and done,

               I will be all.

               I will be One.

I am.

My mother weaves wisdom into my hair.

Lips lay lined lessons that straighten out as curls dry.

Twists turn truth into overlapping lines with underlying morals.

My mother weaves with the know-how while I watch how her fingers blend

with plaited testimonies of her life.

Brush bristles bask by the same hands as her mother

        And her mother's mother with her mother.

She waits with the patience that only a mother knows,

Waiting for me to come to her,

Just as she with her mother

                                               And her mother's

mother with her mother.

Pause as I plant myself at the foundation of her.

Knees melded to my back with metaphors,

Anecdotes anxiously wait at the corners of her mouth ready to leap out

as I fall down.

My mother braids lifelines in my locks.

She speaks of decades in moments and civilisations begin and end with

a blink of her eyes,

She holds the history of lands, and lovers and legends, and lets an

avalanche of culture crumbled at her feet so I may pick a part to

remember.

She talks of tales, tall and true; of experience, or exploration, of

hurt and of happiness.

And as the moisture lifts a heavy veil from my head,

I am left with knots of knowing, twists of telling, odes to oddities

entwined with family memories.

Valleys are formed at the crown of me,

               Earth Etching for all to marvel at, created by the

hands of a mother,

                                                             Just as

she with her mother,

and her mother's mother,

               Braiding history into the hair of their daughters.

My mother weaves.

Polictics

Can crazy be hereditary Helen?

I see her now,

Red suit washed out by red decor

Red flag behind her waving limply patriotic.

The way we kiwis fitted in all black do as we mouth the words to our

national anthem.

I am gunna run up to her and whisper

"Tell me your families crazy too, Helen."

Tell me about the Uncle Bob who dress everyday as a builder,

Riding his ten-speed along suburban streets constructing dream homes

in dream lands.

Despite the fact he neither builds nor speaks.

Tell me about that your cousin Pamela

Who recalls the memories of her life at family functions,

That strangely sounds like repeats of Shortland Street episodes.

Go ask Peters if his family was so enraged with New Zealand,

That they wished to take all tupuna and create police of their own.

"Ow-kai-ta" start running random raids on suspected terrorists homes.

Ask Muldoon if he has a niece, nephew who acts as out of control

As a dawnraid team of the dewy streets of Otara.

Ask Sue if she has an aunty who can't clean up own her backyard,

So she pickets the neighbour's driveway and mows their lawns while

they're at work.

Tell me Helen, do you fight with your husband? Bitch about your parents?

Joke about the craziness of Christmas dramas or family gatherings.

Tell me about that family secret that breaks out rashes along your body,

Every time you hear "emergency press meeting."

Tell me Helen is craziness hereditary?

Do you argue in the mirror with a second voice that argues with the

first in your head?

Do you cry for no reason at all?

Don't you just wanna kill someone sometimes for such a small thing?

Tell me do you hide a secret twitch behind the podium?

A nervous tick, or stutter behind polite evasiveness?

Is that why you never answered me?