God rest your soul
The sins of the father shall be forever imprinted on your weary brow
He filchered and fettled and frolicked in the sun
Leaving behind a string of homeless wives and penniless sons
These faults are incumbent on you and you will falter and fail
Unless you take heed of the signs and learn the lessons.
Give constancy care and compassion
Avoid adultery and count your blessings.
Alison Jean Hankinson
For d’verse poetics, the challenge was sign.
Across the raging Ocean
Hurtling home from France in a skittish Dufour
Bobbing in the ocean like a pea in a drum.
Drum lost her keel in Fastnet fright
We were stranded at sea off Selsey Bill
Limped into Shoreham late evening
Summer storm.
Alison Jean Hankinson
A memorable sailing trip with my parents in August 1985, as a teenager, still not sure how we survived, the auto-pilot couldn’t hold our course it was a little bit rough to say the least. Dad’s little Dufour was 26ft….Simon Le Bon’s Drum was more like 78ft….
For Quadrille at d’Verse. Challenge STORM.
The sun goes down across the sound
The sky across the water shimmers
I see your footsteps in the sand
Your fading silhouette gets dimmer
In this moment my dreams abound
For fear of loss recedes and withers
My love for you is strong as hewn
From landscapes framed in moon.
© Alison Jean Hankinson.
This was really hard, it was for d’Verse and we were challenged to write in a form called Ottava Rima. This was beautiful Morecambe Bay Sands .
The transition to seaside life has been a total joy. However dark and difficult the long days of winter were with their obstacles barriers and uncertainties and the fears that we would somehow fail. There was always a small smattering of hope that things would eventually work out for the better. We have been able to rekindle our love for our own culture and connections, track back through pathways and places that were already part of our story and re-establish the significance of our own place in this wonderful landscape.
The move in springtime to Heysham has been a wonderful and welcome move into what promises to be a pleasant phase of our lives. The sea and scenery are endless sources of peace, calm and serenity. The joy to be able to walk and witness this place in all its beauty and glory for just a small part of each day is genuine food for the soul. There is a song by Groove Armada it is such a seaside song, it talks of sand-dunes and salty air and it is just the sentiment of this place, a seaside town resting on its laurels and trying to reinvent itself as the coastal jewel in the crown resting at the foothills of the Lake District. Mountains on the horizon, resplendent in a salmon sunset, windmills stretching out to sea as far as the eye can see, ancient history carved into the headland and wilderness, wind and wavespray.
Mid tide Glasson Dock
In sprightly spring-time sunshine
Fear and dark thoughts ebb
Alison Jean Hankinson
This is my late offering for Haibun Monday and is about fear receding.
oops just missed the link by 35 minutes…
I remember the soft snowflakes
Delicate as lace
Framed by the cold frigid moonlight
Falling gently to the ground.
Shrouding the world in a pure white blanket
Which sought to cleanse another winter
But pure white turned to grey
And the peaceful night became another dirty day.
Alison Jean Hankinson
This is my contribution for d’Verse open night.
The image is from pixabay,
This changing landscape
Is food for the soul
Misty moody blues beyond the ruins of St Patrick’s
Hues of sand and stone beyond the headland’s horizon
The mysterious mudflats home to the sandwalker of Morecambe Bay.
Wish you were here Heysham.
Virtue her’s is beauty
She hesitates then pounces
And in a flounce of majesty
A reverie of gracefulness
Swoops to savage the delicacies of a dew-sodden dawn
Reap the rewards of a cold rancid morn.
Narcotic silence
Renders love unto my soul
Removes the talons from my heart
Her beauty numbs the pain of death.
Alison Jean Hankinson
This is for the open link night at d’verse.
The image is Common Kestrel in flight from wikimedia.
Echoes in our heart and footprints in the sand
Staccato and tremolo of Tijuana brass
Morecambe Superdome with Don Lusher, a silver black Scirocco
Alan Tomlinson Conductor and lead of our bluesy big-time band
Children of Sanchez, superb shrill of trumpet solo
Transcendental glory in times gone by.
Alison Jean Hankinson
This was my treasure for the poetics challenge. I wish I could let you hear Alan Tomlinson playing Children of Sanchez…. mind you to hear him play anything was a gift. His repertoire and range were exceptional and his passion for music and desire to pass it on to anyone especially young people were equally as exceptional. I played with the LCBB from about 1981-1985….
It was the most magical period of my young existence. As a young trombonist and big band member it was the pinnacle and zenith of my life and career. We played at the Morecambe Superdrome and supported Don Lusher…Stardust was his melody… and I had made it. This was the moment of exaltation when you know that it just doesn’t get any better and Alan Tomlinson hit that note in Children of Sanchez and you know this is the moment in life that you were born to notice. Transcendental Glory at Morecambe Superdrome.
Prose poem at the bar….all at once….it was a complex week… my memento..
Web about Alan Tomlinson…
Stuart GRILLS AND ALAN tOMLINSON
For both poetics and prose at the bar…
The train clatters down the track
Clickety clack clickety clack
To deliver the coal and slack
From the pithead.
Smoke emanates from the dirty stack
Wives hanging washing out the back
From the outhouses of the back to backs
In Terraceville our suburban mill-town.
Kids play in the street and no- one cares
Mothers holler for their offspring and no-one dares
Be late for supper. Free from care
Because they are always there,
And we are taught to share
With each other.
Got no money put it on tick
Misbehave and you get the stick
Get drunk Friday and you’ll be in the nick
In our suburban mill-town.
Alison Jean Hankinson
The photos are from the Peter Fisher Archive and gallery….and this was where I grew up.
This is an attempt…. of sorts for poetics….for d’Verse poetics… I am not sure I achieved…it was not something I normally do…but we are here to learn…. so I have given it a go.
It has been a complex business. I had thought that coming home would have some kind of natural simplicity implicit in its processes. After all we weren’t trying to migrate to new pastures we were simply returning home after an extended spell overseas…11 years in NZ. I hadn’t expected it to be smooth, there were going to be hurdles and obstacles but I had expected it to have some kind of “this is your home” ring to it. I think the shifting sands of Morecambe best sums it up. Things were the same but somehow different. Faces were familiar but somehow not recognisable. In our absence, the shifting sands had changed the landscape.
In spite of this there was an absolute joy in recognising and reconnecting with familiar buildings and walking in the ghostly footsteps left from our previous wanderings and the feeling of warmth and belonging were rekindled by the crisp winter evening air, the ghostly morning mists and the memory of plants and flowers long forgotten in childhood.
Pussy willow tree
In February drizzle
Catkins caress spring
Today for Haibun Monday we were asked to reflect on the best things of life being for free and the catkins this Sunday did it for me. Long forgotten childhood treasure.
Hues of Hankinson 