Author Archives: Janine Martig

Nose to nose with a hungry stoat / I can feel the fear constrict my throat Boom di di boom boom boom boom boom / Boom di di boom boom boom boom boom I’m a whio, blue duck to some / I love running rapids in the rain and the sun Boom di di boomContinue reading “the whio and the stoat song”

Lock-down day two, running along the lakefront I pass a chestnut tree full of bright green spiky Covid-19 balls. In the house for too long, imbibing the news like an alcoholic. The lake laps softly on the pebbled shore, the only sound to break the silence. Sooty black bright-eyed papango dive under the water andContinue reading “The word out on the water”

If I get eaten by a bear don’t cry for me  or not for long but tell the story or turn it to song of how your mother went to Alaska thought she’d get eaten by a bear And did. A darn good yarn, you could dine on it night after night if you gotContinue reading “If I get eaten by a bear”

The kea took my shoes Now they’re mangled and chewed one inner sole is  gone the other’s ripped in two And now I’ve got the kea blues …Oh how I loved those shoes Waa waa waa waa waa It’s an alpine parrot I say alpine pirate Doesn’t sail the high seas But likes shredding theContinue reading “The Kea Blues (a song)”

I could be an astronaut or a hermit in a cave or hide inside a cupboard till the Mormons go away But I’d rather sail to the edge of the sea and dangle my feet in the breeze I could be a turnip growing in the ground The worms that lived around me wouldn’t makeContinue reading “to the edge of the sea”

Gotta woof in the park On my beat, in the street By the bank of the lake Winding track, like a snake Chase the rabbits with my bark In the light, in the dark Don’t let them dive Down the hole Without paying me a toll Yeah it’s hard for me to track them toContinue reading “Oscar Manguy asks ‘Who is Snoop-Dogg?’”

We had a governess once. Her name was Jacaranda. She was conceived, she told us, in Grafton, in the back of a kombi van during the Jacaranda Festival, when the roads were lined with an explosion of purple. The first time we saw her she was stepping off the train in Quilpie in a cottonContinue reading “Our Governess”

‘Lockdown Loaf’ a bit of this and that, the usual stuff, and some beer but not Corona. Thanks Chelsea, Winter’s nipping at our heels so lockdown or no lockdown hot crusty bread’s the way to go. Before Lockdown Loaf there was Luxmore Loaf, of less fame, a different game. The rules are simple: Head forContinue reading “Luxmore Loaf”

Shall I streak around the village? Make a cake of river silt and decorate it with withered mountain daisies? I could pretend to be jolly, make a tiny umbrella out of newspaper to balance on the rim of my coffee cup The one covered nose to tail with fish like an Escher print It’s blusteryContinue reading “Turning 60 in lockdown”