By June Perkins and Friends
Sun
sets, pink,
lavender,
orange paint the
sky.
First
star of
the night winks
brightly into
place.
Moon
slowly
rises, full,
high above the
land.
Thin
clouds drift
across–game
of peek-a-boo.
Veil.
One
star arcs
gracefully,
descending to
Earth.
Thanks to Sunny Dreamer (Shiloh) for giving permission to share this poem on the blog – and for joining the guest poet list.
Visit her eloquent blog by clicking Here
Art is like memories lost, then found
Memories can be a Pandora’s box.
Camera is like a dear friend sharing special moments.
A dear friend is the antidote to a depressing day.
Fake flower is like a make-up face.
Make-up face is a shield to protect.
Curtains are like eye lids that open and shut.
Eye lids are bridges between night and day.
Guitar is like a bird that wants to be heard.
Bird is a dreamer’s avenue to wings.
Poem is like a letter to a detective called reader.
By June Perkins
Camera Girl, by June Perkins
Just playing around with similes and metaphors for a few days.
The shadow of the gnarled tree creeps
across the grass
Growing longer and longer as the sun
goes down.
The knotted wood, the twisted branches
sway in the winter wind.
All is still.
The moon rises, the shadows grow
Shorter and shorter
till they fade.
All that is left is the darkness
the blowing wind
and a tree without a shadow.
By June Perkins
Written as a child, was about 12 years old, published in Brilliant Star.
Mr Charles
Just wanted to say
Georgia’s on my mind
Your life in turmoil
A harsh beginning
Yet a Genius after hours
Life unravelling
Eventually telling heroin to
Hit the Road Jack
Blind to yourself
Until inner search says
When I was a Bird
Why do
Foolish young rock stars do things
Just for a Thrill
Pride and vanity
Make them think it’s cool only to
Mess Around
True genius
Brings soul and art
Together Again
By June Perkins
She will play to me
Skipping a beat and finding a beat
All of the memories and the melodies of blue
She will sing the stories
Running up and down this town
She will sing of cyclones and
The rooves as they fell down
She will play to me
She will play to you
She will sing of me
And sing of you – she
She will play to me
Skipping a beat and finding a beat
All of the memories and the melodies of blue
She will sing of youths
Who died before their time
She will sing of Diggers and
How they lost their mates.
She will play to me
She will play to you
She will sing of me
And sing of you – she
She will play to me
Skipping a beat and finding a beat
All of the memories and the melodies of blue
She will take the drought
Turn it to a blue shout
She will sing of rain
Washing away the pain
She will play to me
She will play to you
She will sing of me
And sing of you- she
She will take the sorrow
That makes the artist whole
She will shake your tears
Into the song of blue
She will play to me
Skipping a beat and finding a beat
All of the memories and the melodies of blue.
By June Perkins
This has been sung as a lyric, sharing the words here for the first time on my blog. May record it on sound cloud.
I am dancing for my Bubu’s river
in synthetic threads she gave me
I am looking in river leaves
to see futures she wants for me
The dreams she chants
spiel on plastic tape
She asks for reunification
that never happens
Brings tears to my mother
never totally wiped away
(c) June Perkins
Sample of a new collection I am working on inspired by my Mekeo Identity.
Bubu is short for grandparent, also used for grandchild, but here used for grandmother.
She went to the archives stretched out in the land
Followed their tracks
Followed their scents nipping in the wind
Followed a canvas sniffing out the paint.
She sent out brush strokes to become picture words
Reeling in acrylic memory
Reeling in encounters with testimony
Reeling in the sites of her aunties’ significances.
She called out to the images against the grain
Installed in galleries, libraries, town halls
Murals and tracks and scents and canvas
And mouths, and songs and steps
And gestures, she danced.
She called out “Here comes the butterfly
Lamenting the suffering of the
Koori song, Murri Song, Warlpiri song, Kimberly song,
Mekeo song, Man song,
Woman song, Human song.”
She danced the revisions of her story
In layers upon layers of
Red earth
Yellow earth, brown earth and white clay.
By June Perkins
Some wrote on newspaper
most went for nature walks
a few went mad
others were sad
some were simply heroically bad-
but
they could take a bird’s nest &
place it in a poet’s basket
with metaphors
so delicate, so precious
to make you
see inside
the lark with a broken wing
By June Perkins
It’s hard work
sowing word seeds
that don’t want to grow
into story grain
but brace against it
waiting for rain’s inspiration.
Rain pitter patters
on the ground
sings out
the beginnings of stories
invites
the creation of metaphors.
But rain laughs
at its cliches
as couples take shelter
only to discover
they’re in love
& teases
as droughts end
& country folk run out to taste & dance
Rain brings floods,
sends people to the tops of rooves
into arks
with animals two by two
But when you smell
petrichor you understand &
Find your unique story
Those memories
take you to a story place
There a man in a canoe crosses the river
of what once was a road
& a smiling woman waits for him
in a blue raincoat.
You have found your beginning.
By June Perkins
Photo Credit: June Perkins
Footsteps I hear
Loud
Soft
Allegro
Andante
Footsteps to follow
courage
resilience
persistence
recovery
Footsteps of mystery
creation
birth
life
purpose
Footsteps I can’t avoid
milestones
old
memory
death
Footsteps
loss
pain
healing
renewal
Inner footsteps
Silence
Meditation
Journey
Understanding
(c) June Perkins,
Ripple Poetry 