God rest your soul
The sins of the father shall be forever imprinted on your weary brow
He filchered and fettled and frolicked in the sun
Leaving behind a string of homeless wives and penniless sons
These faults are incumbent on you and you will falter and fail
Unless you take heed of the signs and learn the lessons.
Give constancy care and compassion
Avoid adultery and count your blessings.
Alison Jean Hankinson
For d’verse poetics, the challenge was sign.
In this life of complex order and sequence
Is a simplicity and fragility that is there to guide us.
We must value the moment we hold in our hands
Take it and treasure it and place it in our conscious mind.
In this life of uncertainty and fragmented disenchantment
we must honour the souls of the ones that came before us
So that that our own endeavours however meagre and small
Will have dignity and connection in their labour and toil.
We must appreciate the moments of beauty and bounty
And be humble and honest and have integrity.
Lest all that we know should be gone tomorrow
In this life of tragedy and human sorrow.
Alison Jean Hankinson
Whilst I wrote this on Saturday it was entirely with the sentiments of d’Verse poetics challenge that was looking for poems to save the soul….and I think we have suffered greatly in the last few weeks with the attacks on London and Manchester and I wanted to peel back the layers to what is still important and will always be important.
Today was a very blustery day….a pooh bear kind of day, and so long as we remember to feel the wind on our face and acknowledge it for what it is we are still clearly alive and functioning.
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
.
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
To love unconditionally
To pass the tests
Of time
To be humble
To walk in awe
Of nature
To be kind to others
To share our wealth
Whatever that may be-
Humour, love, strength, patience
Words of wisdom
To listen carefully.
To be brave
To walk forward into battle
With a steadfast heart
And rising mettle
Knowing that win or lose
We wagered.
To be wise
Keep calm and peaceful
In the storms that rage inside
And know that tomorrow the skies will clear
And beyond the misty gloom
The rainbows will reappear.
Kia Kaha- to be strong
To guard our children fiercely
And cry real tears of sorrow
For all the mothers who have lost their children
And know that every day is long
For someone.
Alison Jean Hankinson
For d’Verse poetics, again written this weekend- I was clearly in need of some chicken soup for the soul. I would hope that this is an optimistic poem and a reminder that we are humble and to be cognisant of the battles we are all fighting underneath the surface.
With love.
Fever 104
Death knocking at the door
And she gave the gift of kindness.
Caressed my burning brow
Spoke with soft and soothing tones
Let me know I was not alone.
Alison Jean Hankinson
January 2011 and I was extremely ill and with fever, there was this wonderful nurse who throughout the Saturday night as doctors came and went, cared for me, she put wet flannels on my head, and came every 10 minutes to let me know I was not alone, it was the middle of the night and all my family were gone and her kindness will always stay with me. It was at that point in my life that I think I really understood that the kindness of a friend or stranger is always one of the most bountiful and unexpected gifts.
The photo is from St Ann’s Square in Manchester today, I was struck again by this word. It will always have more power than hatred. A tribute to the nurse that cared for me and the people of Manchester.
The challenge tonight as d’Verse was to write about a gift.
The sun goes down across the sound
The sky across the water shimmers
I see your footsteps in the sand
Your fading silhouette gets dimmer
In this moment my dreams abound
For fear of loss recedes and withers
My love for you is strong as hewn
From landscapes framed in moon.
© Alison Jean Hankinson.
This was really hard, it was for d’Verse and we were challenged to write in a form called Ottava Rima. This was beautiful Morecambe Bay Sands .
The deafening silence of tragedy
the sound of pain beyond human comprehension
Stunned into silence a soundless
pause perhaps if we remain completely silent
maybe we won’t be noticed and it won’t be real.
Shrill sounds reveal that it is scarily real after all.
Alison Jean Hankinson
This is for d’Verse quadrille.
In 2005 I was in London with a group of school students when there was the second bombing, my students who were young and had never experienced anything like that before just wanted to get on their coach and go home immediately which just wasn’t possible, we left the following morning and the bus was eerily silent and remained so until we got beyond Birmingham. Silence is deafening in tragic circumstances. My heart and love to all to all who were touched by the Manchester bombing.
Third row back
never back chat
yet nobody knows my name.
I am the classroom ghost
Faceless to most
Silent learner lurking in the shadows.
Alison Jean Hankinson
I am putting this in for the open link night. I wrote this last week and yes it is/was inspired by my day-job…. Foe d’Verse open link
The inspiration actually came from a very lovely student who gave the description “lurking in the shadows” when asked what skulking meant. I sent a postcard home.
The clock never stops
tick tock tick tock
He thought it didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things
It was only a moment of anger and uttered words of hurt
But now they would always be the last words he said.
Why hadn’t he blurted out he loved her instead.
©Alison Jean Hankinson
I wrote this a while back but I am using it for open link night at d’Verse as it has been a moment that continues to haunt me, the idea that we often don’t know what those last words will be or when the last moment will happen and that we have so little control over it all, the clock never stops…
I took the image from flickr Rachael Towne- Antique clock.
It is the community singing that does it for my Dad every time,
Every rugby and football match those anthems for the common man.
They capture heart and soul, and bridge dreams and memories
And he sings with them, they become one voice,
one song, one breath-taking moment
of shared understanding and surrender,
of solidarity, stoicism and strength.
His heart was broken
In that shared moment he saw it and claimed it.
His grief, his passion, his anger, his will to live
all in the community singing.
They sing for him.
Alison Jean Hankinson
This is for Poetics and the evening is being hosted by Paul Scribbles and the theme was community.
His heart was broken is a play on the words from The Proclaimers song Sunshine on Leith which is the anthem for Hibernian Football club. It has become one of my dad’s favourites even though he is a Turf Moor fan at heart.
Here is a link to a rendition of it:
Hues of Hankinson 