Category: fun

Fairground Fay

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Fay was away with the fairies

Loves lost dream and high as a coconut shy

She made devil may care seem tame

She made revelling and carousing her game

By daytime she was clean and bright as a button

But lamplight changed her demeanour

like a chameleon she was more of a wanton

One sultry summer night

She got into a fairground fight

And the Police had to pull her out of a fountain.

 

Alison Jean Hankinson

I think I used this one for humour. We were often referred to as POM’s when we were in the Antipodes. Prisoner of her majesty, as many of the early settlers, were actually from the convict ships sent from England. So even though Fay looked very respectful I wanted to share her darker side…

This is for d’Verse poetics. Our theme was mugshots.

 

 

This Old House

Blot on the landscape

Ugliest house drapes

Lime green

 

Garden not shipshape

A narrow escape

hygiene

 

Dirty old milk crate

For a garden gate

Rats’ dream.

 

Alison Jean Hankinson

 

A light-hearted attempt at a Lai for d’Verse….not as easy as it looks…and my first ever…

Insomnia

Can’t sleep, can’t stop thinking

Can’t stop worrying about the drinking

The bills, the wolf howling at the door

The need to always give that little bit more

Buster’s new shoes, Molly’s lose tooth

Worn out carpets on our worn out floors

Can’t sleep woes, Can’t sleep blues

If you know me well enough avoid me in the morning

As I’ll have the can’t sleep short fuse.

Insomnia.

 

Alison Jean Hankinson

Written today for d’Verse... we had to save a life on an issue…I chose can’t sleep which I am sure affects many people a lot of the time.

Brunton Park boogie-woogie

Grey-haired renegades

Body-popping bimble-bugs

Summer spirits soar.

We were highly entertained on a beautiful summer evening at Brunton Park, Carlisle watching the UB40 Grandslam tour. It was a relaxed affair, every bit old school reggae with some Level 42 for good measures. I suspect the average age of the audience was pushing 50. The beer flowed, everything was mellow and there were smiling happy people enjoying sunshine, good music and a little bit of bimbling bopping…I get auto-corrected every time I try to use bimbling, but it is a word…although I took the liberty of adding to it in my short senryu

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It was a long walk home and I suspect there will be many had tired and aching feet and a few with added hangover this morning, but it was a welcome reminder of the good natured side of eighties life…there was nothing to prove…no hidden dystopian novellas wrapped in shady riffs, just sunshine and the occasional syncopated rhythm from a trill trumpet or a laid back sax. Reggae on renegades.

Alison Jean Hankinson

 

Postcard From The Barrows On Heysham Head.

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.

©Alison Jean Hankinson

….d’Verse poetics

Childhood Haunt.

 

The promenade bathed in winter sunshine,

Seagulls, chips and gravy, Blackpool rock

Then the Winter Gardens in all her splendour

bringing memories and echoes of a bygone era.

Reminiscing on a lifetime of cherished holidays

Whispers of childhood wishes and ghosts of summers past.

 

Alison Jean Hankinson

 

The challenge for tonight’s quadrille was Ghost. Today we revisited many ghosts as we took a road trip to Blackpool a place that will always hold a special place in my heart.

d’Verse quadrille #26

Juanita the human barometer.

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Juanita could tell when there was a wild storm approach

Rheumatoid arthritis made her a human barometer

As the wind and rain would vent and hurl

her tiny hands would begin to curl

And she would feel intense pain from her neck to toes.

 

Alison Jean Hankinson.

 

for Qaudrille #23 at d’Verse

It wasn’t possible to outdo the prompt verse…. it is at is…I tried to keep this in the same lighthearted style….

Thought I had better say that I am not being mean….I have RA and this does happen.

 

 

11.55 Piccadilly to London Euston…Christmas Eve.

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Is this seat taken?

I do hope not, it is such a long journey when you have to stand.

I was going to catch the earlier train but there was an accident on the M62.

Can I just squeeze past to put my bag on the rack, and then I’ll be out of your way,

I know how irritating it can be when people expect you to move.

Are you going to London too?

I do hope so.

It can be such good fun when you have company on a long and busy train journey.

You can get to know someone really well in such a short space of time…

Has the refreshment trolley been?

I do hope not, I was running late and didn’t get chance to get a bottle of water at the station.

Are you on facebook?

I do hope so…then I can add you as a friend….

 

In response to the Daily prompt. HOPE…please accept with goodwill….by the way I  always come equipped with way too many bags…..and can never find my ticket…

In my youth I worked at Piccadilly train station, as a Barista in the days before they were called Baristas……

Hopeful

Portpatrick

Going out to dinner

Romantic you and me

I forgot my wallet

Hurry let us flee.

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Image- Wikimedia- Portpatrick- Photographer Arnold Price.

Sorry it probably isn’t the slightest bit poetic. We accidentally did this not once but twice in the same pub/restaurant…

It was New Year’s Eve and a group of us would brave the weather to travel to a tiny place called Portpatrick to experience a real Hogmany. We would arrive and were usually relatively “not sober” by dinner time and wandered around the few pubs and eating establishments rather merrily……my husband and I always ate our evening meal in the same hilltop restaurant on NYE, the first year we accidentally left without paying drunken and happy beneath the stars- we went back and paid later in the stay. The second year we were jovially recounting our tale-drunk as skunks in the harbourside bar when we suddenly realised we had done it again. We did return to pay the next day.

Flee