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…
I am the face of hope,
In the fast fading light.
I am the distant dream
Driving forwards, when the day draws to a close,
The Star-bright shining in a suburban sultry night.
I am the laughter and the tears, the fear and guilt and pain,
Felt by all the mothers before me, the broken and the humbled, the joyous and loving,
I am the seed, the seedling, the roots, trunk and branches.
I bear the fruit. I am the womb of time.
I am me, fifty and finally come of age, woman.
Alison Jean Hankinson
It is open link night #190 at d’Verse and so we are encouraged to submit anything we choose, this was part of something I wrote a while back, and I guess it is what I need to believe at the moment. Returning and coming home has been nothing short of gruelling, nothing has been simple at all. It has been a little like hurling yourself from a small cliff into a ferocious and stormy ocean. I have to know deep down that it will come right and that the storm will pass. To do this I have to peel back the layers and remind myself of what I believe I am and then slowly start to pick myself up again.
The image is Ellen and the tree- the second version…and my children are very much a symbol of what I am.
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.
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.
Burnished brambles soft
underfoot on winter hike
brisk I catch my breath.
Returning to England after eleven years in New Zealand and finding the immediate transition from summer soaring heat to winter chill more than a little breathtaking the temptation to hibernate has been more than very real, so it was with some trepidation and a whole lot of zealous determination that made me venture forth on Sunday to conquer Heversham Head post Sunday roast in Sunday best with hiking boots. I managed to avoid face-plant in mud..and was rewarded with landscapes beyond imagination.
Alison Jean Hankinson.
This is for Haibun Monday with d’Verse in response to the challenge and guidance provided by Bjorn. The image (my own) was taken following a brisk walk up Heversham Head on Sunday afternoon and is from the descent at Fluster Gap. It was rather chilly and bracing.
Colossal mountain
And you know it is hard to climb
Sitting in the starlight,
Carboniferous days
And love turned to stone
When you left the valleys behind
And all that you can do
Is smile at the moon
And start the climb
Alison Jean Hankinson
This is for d’Verse open link night.
So today on Friday 13th of January our furniture is scheduled to leave Whangarei exactly 11 years to the day we arrived. We drove over the Brynderwyns on Friday 13 Jan 2006 and saw the vista of Whangarei and Mount Manaia for the very first time. I actually began to write this poem many years ago when it became clear to me that when leaving to pursue our dreams we inevitably leave behind places and people that we have grown to love and cherish.
Arohanui. Great love to all. XXXXXX
Here I stand cap in hand
A lifetime before me
And a lifetime behind me
And in the lamplight the path isn’t clear.
Here I lean upon my wooden bridge
Subdued memories ripple downstream in the wake of yesterday
And if I cross- hail what tomorrow brings
Shadows or sunsets in the evening?
Alison Jean Hankinson
For poetics d’Verse
Image– my mum and my daughter Ellen at St Annes, Lancashire. Mum was called Anne…
The lifetime behind me is my mum, whom I left behind and lost when I came to NZ, the lifetime before me is Ellen my eldest daughter whom I leave behind when I leave NZ to return to England.
Childhood memory haibun for d’Verse- Haibun monday #28
Joanne and Alyson Abel had a goat. It lived on a messy piece of land adjoining their house which was probably actually their garden. Our garden was similar- a messy piece of land over a footbridge and formed part of a field. It never got mowed it wasn’t that kind of grass. I caught endless fish in a bucket using old stockings and coathangers and always put them back.
I lived and played outdoors in the summer and I don’t remember the rain, I borrowed other people’s distant sheds and turned them into “ganghuts” or dens in Doubledeckers style. I would track the rivers back to streams and back to source and wash stones in the summer sun. I ate gooseberries from the bushes near the Goyt (not it’s real name) which was a dammed swimming hole behind the school which all the children were forbidden to use- but we all did and no-one died, floating in inner tubes late into the day until we heard the din of the mothers cooking dinner and shouting for their off-spring.
Summer glow in heart
Friendships echo through the blue
Childhood re-kindled.
Images
Water School from the fields
Isle of Man Mill. Courtesy of Wikimedia- Photo by Robert Wade 2011. (My mum worked there as a seamstress)
Hues of Hankinson 
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