poems – Page 2 – Hues of Hankinson

How little can we live off?

Fragile strands of hope

Adrift at sea, lifeless, mere driftwood in the doldrums,

Dear God deliver us from this desperate dream

Have mercy-throw us a line.

Lift us up above the relentless rips that ride us roughshod across the sands.

How little can we live off?

Give us some crumb of comfort

Let us know that tomorrow will bring new hope on the horizon.

It is a wild place

No comfort for those who care.

We are foreigners in a flawed landscape

Fettered by our need to belong.

We have been through much this last year, and it seems like each day brings some new horror but we have no choice but to walk forward still. It is wild and a little unkempt and uncaring and I wonder if it can ever be any better, any less wild.

This is for d’Verse poetics.

Death washes over us…..

The sun set slowly

reminded us of the glory days

When we had youth and fortitude.

We cannot all age well

Yet we all remember our youthful ways,

when we danced playfully at the murky edge of maturity.

This body frail as it is now

was a totem, an emblem of our love and lives together,

hallowed in the summers of our spiritual enlightenment before we had children of our own.

The sun sets slowly.

Death washes over us,

creeps through the open window in the dead of night.

©Alison Jean Hankinson.

napwrimo 18 Day 29 the penultimate.

This is for d’Verse open link night.

Liminality….

I miss lavender

It attracted the bees and reminded me of home

When home was half a world away and beyond the realms of reality.

I miss home still, not a place or sense of belonging

But the physical space that keeps us safe from the rest of the world

The place where it is okay to be nothing to nobody in a non-descript kind of way.

I miss being valued and making a contribution that is deemed worthwhile

Beyond the futile measures of a financially strapped world or work.

Where experience, age and wisdom lies currently forgotten alongside dandelion dreams on the kerbside of parsimony.

I miss the bright star of hope and the sense of celestial justice

That came from the certainty that there was some unwritten moral code

Whereby staunch steadfast endeavour would be rewarded with reciprocal remuneration.

I miss being able to do what I do best

Taking my place in the workforce

Having my tools at my desk to bring the world alive for the future generations.

©Alison Jean Hankinson

This is for Day 28 Napowrimo

Listing

Sometimes I just want to shout man overboard

I wonder if they notice me drowning in my sea of despair

The waves washing over me eroding my will to rise above the tide

of hopelessness.

Sometimes I just want to shout man overboard

It as if I have been listing too long

I can’t hold on anymore and I am driftwood at sea

Destined to become seaweed and seashells for beachcombers in the longshore drift.

©Alison Jean Hankinson

It was a man overboard kind of week. This is for Napowrimo18. Day 27. Fragile.

These are my salad days.

it seems so hard to get ahead no heart left

endless grind to outperform

win accolades work up a storm

prove our worth, lose our mirth

what was that you said….Austerity bites?

These things shall be a loftier race

we did our homework

bought our homes

met the deadlines

paid our loans.

What was that you said- stay out the red?

it seems so hard to get ahead

just turned 50- might as well be dead

no opportunity knocking at my door

self-esteem is on the floor

We shared our worth with all who cared

We gave our best and braved the world

We talked of global dreams we shared

We worked and toiled and laboured long

We advocated for the people wronged.

We danced to Live-aid in the summer of 85

Our generation thought it was great to be alive

Light of knowledge in our eyes

But in the nation’s mind we have grown old

And our wisdom, experience and compassion is no longer Gold.

©Alison Jean Hankinson

this is for yesterday Day 25 Napowrimo. I am a little behind. The lyrics mentioned are from our BRGS School Hymn- These things shall be a loftier race, and Gold by Spandau Ballet.

napowrimo

You are beautiful.

You are perfect just the way you are.

Every blemish is a mark of a wish or a milestone

That was part of your life and has meaning.

We wear our scars like jewellery

Ornate adornments of battles we have fought and sufferings we have silenced.

Loves we have lost, dreams that lay smashed at the feet of the soul-less.

You are perfect just the way you are-

So wear your skin with pride, it is your life’s canvas,

And your story unfolds with every step forward and every glance back towards the setting sun.

this is for napowrimo Day 20. It is for my girls. With all my love. Mumma. XXXXX

The Doomsday clock ticks on…

1984 at BRGS

Nervous of a nihilistic Orwellian disaster,

and the truth was the clock was sitting at three minutes to Midnight.

The eighties was bigger and better than it had ever been before

The ra-ra skirts and Club Tropicana

Were our own way of shaking off the pervasive doom of the previous decade,

Punctuated by strikes, unrest, fuel shortages and the three day week.

But the Cold war raged and the doomsday clock ticked on.

Disturbed by the dystopian nightmare of the nuclear propaganda machine.

Is this the return of the nightmare that was? What time is it Mr Wolf?

A couple of added words but for napowrimo day 19 we were challenged to write an erasure poem, I wrote the piece of prose earlier in the week and have used it to create the poem.