d’verse – Hues of Hankinson

Sami haiku

September Sami,

Sea breeze, sunset, harvest moon

Late summer Swan song.

We are on holiday in Sami, Kefalonia. It is beautiful. This is for d’Verse open link night.

October Ombre

October ombre- Autumn’s hue

Halloween pumpkins and gourds adorn dank doorsteps

Milky early morning mist. In the air-a crisp clean chill

Abundance of Fall apples falling to the leaf-carpeted floor,

Russet leaves of the Japanese maple, October ombre, Autumn’s hue.

Coffee, chocolate, cinnamon and nutmeg aromas wafting through the alley

Mixed with mildew and scent of leaves rotting, sweetly pungent against the early morning dew

Woodsmoke, whispers of the winter ahead billows from suburban chimney pots

As my faltering footsteps softly crunch the leafy path anew

Stagnant stench of acrid coke smoke, chokes

October ombre- Autumn’s hue.

©Alison Jean Hankinson

This was for the d’Verse challenge to write a poem about Autumn in the Fold style, which is new to me, and I had a go, but not quite sure I really did it right.

In the doghouse.

It had adorned the bookshelf for thirty years,

The beautiful lover’s rose sealed in the long-stemmed glass that he had given her on their first anniversary.

He had slipped,

CRASH

glass…

Fell to the floor

SMASH

Broken beyond recognition.

He was in the doghouse.

©Alison Jean Hankinson

This is for d’Verse quadrille night. We were asked to write about SMASH.

The glass with the rose has travelled halfway round the world and back in shipping containers, spending weeks at sea….so I have no idea how it remains unbroken.

Violeta

The scene is set in the Covid pandemic where 100 year old Violeta casts a backwards glance to a century of conflict, upheaval, separation bountiful love, joy and enigmatic existence.

She was born against a backdrop of burning fevers, Spanish flu followed by a caustic double coup.

It was the beginnings of an extraordinary ordinary life. Violeta experienced extremes of early privilege followed by extremes of poverty, prejudice and dislocation. It shaped her into a formidable and compassionate woman.

The curious relationships she encountered throughout her life added a colour and vibrancy and her ability to thrive and survive through family tragedy and disappointment are woven so intricately within the turbulent political tapestry of the time. To walk with Violeta and see the world through her eyes reminded me of the raw incredible beauty of all that is woman, the scars, the suffering the survival and the soulfulness.

D’VERSE for Thursdays challenge. We were asked to write poetry prose about a book we had just read. I read Violeta by Isabel Allende

Bowness on Solway

They come in flocks, to pay homage to Hadrian.

It is a pilgrimage of sorts, they walk, they cycle, they tread the Roman way,

Along Hadrian’s wall.

All the way from Tynemouth in the East

Coast to coast, a formidable trek,

But it was our home long before it became their rite of passage.

Mum loved it here. The Solway, Port Carlisle, Bowness on Solway,

St Michaels Church- in all its 12th century glory,

Magnificent against the backdrop of late summer sun.

She would wander through the gravestones,

And ponder on the lives of those laid to rest.

Listen to the birdsong and the lap-lapping of the incoming tide.

Dad and I take her flowers, more of an amble than a walk,

We sit a while, feel the onshore breeze, look for driftwood,

Taste the salt of the outgoing tide

And wonder if Hadrian’s footsteps trod this hallowed ground before us.

One day perhaps I will walk the full length of the wall

To make my own final pilgrimage.

©Alison Jean Hankinson

This is my offering for Poetics, still blowing the cobwebs off. We needed to think about a walk. This was my outing with my Dad last week on Mum’s 15th anniversary.

d’Verse Poetics with Lillian

Just a moment…

Each moment is distinct

it may or may not relate to the preceding moment

it may or may not be followed by a moment of equal or even greater magnitude

it is what it is- a moment.

It will pass

It will be superseded

It will be vanquished, resurrected, redefined, it will shine redolent as the star in its own story

And then be gone….to make way for the next moment.

Always remember this.

It is but a moment.

unremarkable yet remarkable

It will pass.

I first published this in 2018 for Mental health Awareness week, but have made some small edits. It was World Suicide Prevention Day on Sunday 10th September. Suicide has a profound impact on all whom are touched by it, and I certainly don’t have any answers, but I know in my heart of hearts that what looks just so in one moment, can look entirely different in the next moment.

I think this is what I was trying to capture.

This is for Open Link Night at d’Verse.

Windchime

I hear your voice in the morning as you call me

Beckons me to follow you home.

Where your voice lingers.

I gather trinkets that are reminders of you,

A windchime, a plant pot, a word unspoken

A feather, a seashell, a stray thought.

©Alison Jean Hankinson

This is for Day23 of napowrimo18

The first line is loosely taken from Country Roads, a song I hear in my head often that makes me think of my mum and dad. It will be 10 years this summer since mum passed but I still gather things that she would have liked, and I still don’t know if I gather them for her or for me. Love my family. XXXX

This is also for d’Verse quadrille and the challenge word/thought was gather.

Wintering down

So barren and bare

Sacres me with its sense of isolation

Leave-less trees, dead shrubbery scars the landscape

The wind bites through the boulders that shield me from the sudden snow flurry.

Old Man

Sits atop the slate,

Spoil heaps spill still from the rugged ruins of derelict mines.

Firm footsteps back toward the lake to see the sunset skim the surface of the water.

I used the image called “Winter trees at Coniston” by Fay Collins.

This was written for poetics d’Verse

It is also Day 17 of Napowrimo.

Winter boogie-woogie

Starlings on the rooves

Hip-hop hopping, tip-tap tapping

Snow stomping flappy happy

Getting in the winter mood.

Fiery looking foxes putting on their groove

Foxtrotting through the frosty frozen fauna

Racing hastily through the forest

Working on their festive foxy moves

Red squirrels with dancing shoes

Snowy soft shoe shimmy shuffle

Acorn tapping troubadours

working the winter wonderland blues.

Getting the groove on for d’Verse...

Crunch

It was pride,

I wore my heart on my sleeve,

shared my hopes and dreams.

You brushed them aside

they scattered like confetti

and shattered as you trod on them.

One by one, I heard them break

under the crunch

of your negative footfalls.

This is for d’Verse quadrille where we were given the word Crunch.

I had a difficult few weeks and took a bit of a battering in a very bizarre job interview. I did speak up for myself(and cried on the way home…) but I do worry that somewhere in this current climate we seem to have lost our values, our compassion and sense of humanity.

The photos are intended to be the opposite- the restoration of the spirit and soul.