Garfield
Fat cat
Eating, sleeping, playing
Always by my side
LLLLL-Lion.
© Alison Jean Hankinson
This is for fun today on Day 10 of Napowrimo. Garfield is our fat cat….and I think he secretly fancies himself as a lion…..
It is in the form of a didactic cinquain which is quite structured and suitable for encouraging young students to write poems.
Here’s some info about the form.
Be still my beating heart
In this boundless light I bask
In his bountiful love I bear witness
I wear love’s malleable mask.
Be still my beating heart
For fear of battles feigned in vain
And swordsman on his shining steed
Did my fragile heart reclaim.
Be still my beating heart
For he doth love another
And all the magic in the world
Will not ease my slumber.
Be still my beating heart
I must hide my shame and guilt
Give me strength grace and fortitude
And let my broken dreams be rebuilt.
©Alison Jean Hankinson
This is for napowrimo Day 8, the prompt was to write in the spirit of Shelley, which was perhaps a bit challenging at 7am, anyway this is as much in the spirit of Shelley as I can muster.
The image is of St George…I imagine this to be the fair damsel in distress once the rose petals have faded.
It was in the public domain on wikimedia- attributed to circle of Lucas Cranach the Elder [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
My first was stillborn,
My cries carried across the fields on the cusp of a winter storm
The snow lay thick on the ground,
I lay like a mewling ewe and cradled her in my arms
Before the long walk home.
There were others, each swelling of my belly a signal of his pervasive masculinity.
Three brothers followed by a changeling child and so we were cast aside forced to live as outcasts
I moved boulders and stones and tilled the soil, back-breaking into the dead of night
A bairn on my back and another one snug as a bug deep inside.
He couldn’t feel my pain.
One by one they all moved on, they wearied at our laborious life
They found themselves new families and took themselves a wife
And I was left behind, old hag with sagging breasts
No milk to nursefeed bairns on winter nights
No place for my wearied bones to rest.
© Alison Jean Hankinson
This is for imaginary garden with real toads where we were invited to write in the voice of another.
My mother’s last meal was cornflakes and I wonder did she spill a drop of milk, did she relish every lingering mouthful, did she know somewhere deep inside her soul that this was effectively her last supper.
Flushed and anguished
Pain obliterates, raindrops cascade down the dirty window pane.
One last breath
A sigh before death.
©Alison Jean Hankinson
I haven’t participated in napowrimo before so this is new to me, I used the prompt for day 6. I have participated in Nanowrimo successfully a number of times so I thought it was time for a change.
Morpeth mopes amidst the mildewed mounds
Of coke and coal and grime hewn by hungry hands.
Derelict Silos silhouetted in a moonlit sky
Iron beasts and barren landscapes
Whilst Angel spreads her wings on hillside high.
Deep scars and seams of people slain
In Tanfield beneath the sleet and driving rain
The worlds oldest railway dilapidated in dormant sidings dies
Testament to Britain- the first industrial nation,
An epithet built on poor peoples’ lives.
©Alison Jean Hankinson
We spent Easter in the wind snow and rain, touring the North-East. This is for d’verse where we were asked to consider pilgrimage. To me this was a true pilgrimage. It was a journey I felt compelled to take. We stand on the shoulders of giants.
It was a lacklustre marriage
A bouquet of flowers on a spring day
Followed by shortcomings and oversights.
“I don’t hound you Joyce…What do you mean
I am the perfect gent, always there to stand at your side.”
I wanted a man not a dog.
He had carried me across the threshold
Love danced in his eyes-It was a breath-taking moment of becoming
Then the colour of roses faded
His skin lost the scent of sandalwood
And we were dead in the water, his love had shifted upstream.
She had crystal blue eyes and a wanton smile
He was mesmerised by her moodiness
She pulled him in with her powerful and ardent amour
and summoned his presence on a platter of platitudes
Served with a side order of shipwrecked marriage.
It was a lacklustre marriage
Followed by shortcomings and oversights.
He had carried me across the threshold
before the colour of roses faded
And his love went astray.
©Alison Jean Hankinson
This is for d’Verse.
The first poem that ever really grabbed me was Cargoes by John Masefield, I was about 7 years old. I think my dad could recite it off by heart and it sounded so delicious, the words were so lyrical and dripped off the page like honey and then there was the dirty British coaster and it made me so proud to be a northerner, whilst we didn’t have the opulence of the Orient, we played an important role in the world. This was when I started to write poetry but I struggled for a while as I preferred to write poems that didn’t rhyme and I didn’t know anything about structure either and had no-one to teach me.
As a teen I moved into the realms of The Wasteland and had a wonderful teacher who made the Thames maidens come alive- I can still hear the Weialala leia- and loved the references and the voices, the languages, and the tempo and timbre changes. I discovered Sylvia Plath and devoured Ted Hughes, he lived in Heptonstall for a while and I used to play there at the whit walks with the Brass Band and walk down the steep cobblestones playing my trombone. Then I stopped writing and only really started again in November 2016 as my 50th birthday present to myself, and I discovered d’Verse. I love the challenge and the words and the learning and the community. It has been a wonderful voyage of rediscovery and I love giving a voice to the past, then the stories can live on.
Winter storm
We take to the road
Spring’s adrift.
©Alison jean Hankinson
This is for d’Verse where we have been asked by Toni to explore where our inner poet was inspired and nurtured.
These red bricks, these tall chimneys,
Coloured by their blood, shaped by the hands of their children
Carried on their rugged shoulders and working class calves.
We don’t look up enough, we don’t marvel at what they gave us.
These edifices echo with their pain and suffering
Voices of our forefathers, sinewed souls of our ancestors
They built their empires in cotton and coal so that we could enjoy
The fruits of their labours and be forever known as the workshop of the world.
Salford, Stalybridge, Manchester, Blackburn, Wigan-working that weft
Darwen, Accrington, Chorley, Preston, winding that bobbin up.
And the roll call falters, unemployment, hunger, desperation, and impoverishment
They stood together arm in arm, hand in hand, through protest and starvation,
To demonstrate their love and pride for another brother in another place.
We should stand tall for we stand on the shoulders of giants
They gave us humility, compassion, work ethic and pride.
True northern spirit and true northern soul.
©Alison Jean Hankinson
Featured image from the public domain labelled for reuse. Horrockses Cotton Mill Preston.
Other images are my own.
This journey into the cotton famine was a soulful journey and I am very proud of the stance taken by the Lancashire millworkers and the sacrifices they made. We were encouraged to look at soul for poetics at d’Verse.
I have edited this and made some changes.
You wore silk
A delicate shade
Ivory
Gold brocade
Your veil feigning innocence
You captured my heart.
Nylon shift
Hides your sagging form
Rings forlorn
Scars are worn
On old withered hands laid bare
Our love lingers on.
© Alison Jean Hankinson
This is for MTB at d’Verse where we are using the form Shadorma.
To me the form suggested shadow and I thought about how as we age we still keep our shadow of youth.
Ingredients
A cup of love
Add in a large measure of compassion
Stir in resilience, rays of hope and a little bit of awe and wonder.
Mix with manners, humility and respect
And leave to prove in a warm and welcoming kitchen
Method
Encourage courage and a brave heart
Give support and hope through times of hardship and self-doubt
And demonstrate that with careful consideration there can be a useful lesson learned in most experiences of failure.
Teach that family and friendship can be more fulfilling than fruitless feuding
That money doth not always maketh the man
That the road can be long and winding but however heavy the burden and load we must walk on with a glad heart.
Give them wings to fly and heritage, culture and connection to ground them.
Give them a handbag full of handy hints and useful tips and tools for everyday survival.
Ensure they are secure in the knowledge that your love will always be there at the end of the day and that without a shadow of a doubt you have got their back,
And that one day they will do the same for their own offspring.
©Alison Jean Hankinson.
To Ellen and Emily love Mumma. For International Women’s Day 2018. I am offering this also for d’Verse open link night, sorry I have been a bit quiet recently folks.
Hues of Hankinson 