alisonhankinson

The colour of a single moment….

For me, I find that I like to capture a moment. It is like taking a photograph, I want to make it three-dimensional and breathe life into it. It can be any moment, it can be a moment that exists has existed or a created imaginary moment. The moment can be characterised by a sound, an image, a feeling, and the poem grows from that moment.

I also like to play with words, I see it is a challenge. I guess it is like playing music, I enjoy it immensely, making the images and playing with the words and sounds. Tonight the sunset was bright orange. It was truly amazing, this was the moment- it was burnished orange. It became a Haiku because tonight was haibun Monday. I didn’t think I would get home in time to get a photo, but I just caught the last traces of it.

Bright orange sunset

Burnished embers summer sun

Harvest moon leaves fall.

This is for d’Verse Haibun Monday.

Best of the bay today…

Shipwreck in the sand

Rare beauty beyond the blue

See Autumn falter.

Back to school blues….

Early morning indigestion

Motorway congestion

Students fully of germs and bugs

Too much work and brain fug

Brow burns

Streaming snot

Sore throat

Head hot

Wake up feeling dreadful

First cold of the season

Grateful it is weekend

And I don’t have to pretend or reason

With unruly students, pesky pests,

Procrastinators, sharp-cornered desks

Eager beavers and teacher pleasers.

Sat in bed instead with TV and Maltesers.

Pass the tissues, please. XXX

©Alison Jean Hankinson

Fire burns at back of throat

I’ve got the lot

Anxiety

Still, as a mouse

If I breathe silently no-one will hear

No –one will be aware

That I live in fear

In this moment.

Tick tock tick tock

Pitter patter pitter patter

Boom boom boom boom

Pitter patter pitter patter

Tick tock tick tock

In this moment

I hear, taste and smell fear

Of my anguish no-one is aware

I breathe silently so no-one will hear

I stay still as a mouse

Frozen in anxiety.

©Alison Jean Hankinson

Our love- a car crash.

Fear’s icy tendrils caress the nape of my neck

I see the mangled wreckage up ahead

Acrid smoke spewing from the burnt-out shell

That was your car.

Carnage.

Plastic bags strewn across the carriageway carelessly.

Empty nest, neglected summer,

Loneliness brandished in the scorched tyre treads.

Relief washes over me

I am waterfall to babbling brook

Phoenix from the ashes-you live on

We have a second chance to ignite and burn brightly.

©Alison Jean Hankinson

This is for d’Verse where metaphor is the challenge.

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Atonement

The rain washes away the sorrow

It cleanses the impurity of the years before

and soothes the shallow breathing of the old man.

Pitter, patter, pitter, patter on the old tin roof

Melodies of days long gone when forsooth

I was a younger man, of stronger mettle.

The rain washes away the sin and surrender

Purifies the pungent putrid memories of this life before

Soothes the sallow sagging skeleton that sits beside the bed.

Drip, drop, drip, drop, drip, drop on the old tin shed

Reminds me of all the things I still have left unsaid

To those who loved me beyond the bounds of duty and sanity.

The rain washes away the pain and the punishment

Washes away the abusive torture and the brutal beatings.

Rain brings reparation for a wretched soul in search of absolution.

Pitter, patter, drip, drop, pitter, patter, payday

As my sins have been forgiven I forgive them their sinful way

Forgive my wartime crimes Lord. Take my soul today.

raindrops-1404209_1920

The theme tonight at d’Verse was rain, and it was supposed to be a positive contribution. I spent many years in NZ and rain is often seen as symbolic, it is cleansing or purifying, so in the image (from pixabay) the rain and rainbow would be seen as celebratory. I think atonement is positive but perhaps not quite what would have been expected.

Mother’s Pearls of Wisdom…

There’s no such thing as a free lunch

A job worth doing is worth doing well

Pearls of wisdom

From mother’s repertoire of sayings.

She believed that when one door closes

Somewhere a window opens,

That a kindness given

Is a teardrop in heaven.

©Alison Jean Hankinson

This is a quadrille for d’Verse. The word we were given was free.

Changing Seasons…

Winsome wind

Lifting leaves

From autumn trees.

Gusty squalls

Across the reach

Hearty waves crash on a windswept beach.

Stormy days unease

September’s short reprise

Before relentless chill of winter.

As summer gives way to Autumn and we near the Fall equinox this seems to be the right poem for d’Verse open link night. Soon be out in those wellies crunching the fallen leaves…