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Illuminations
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Tag: hope
Chalking Cheerful
I am chalking cheerful
even though I’m not an artist
from my drive way to your drive way
from my pathway to your pathway
wherever you are
HOPE.
I am chalking unicorns and dragons
teddy bears
and love hearts.
I am thinking of the grandparents
missing their grandchildren
the people stuck in their homes
the people without homes
the playgrounds without children
the children who never had playgrounds.
And flying towards us is a dragon
in his talons a vaccine
And the teddy bears send a hug to the doctors and nurses
and the teachers and all those looking after us
Unicef says to draw the real life heroes of today
they are all around us.
I am chalking cheerful
Will you join me?
June Perkins
Extracts from The Dreamers 2
Maypole
These steps we take can bring some dreams to us
with shuffle-shuffle-shuffle and
a toe-heel-toe.
These steps we take can last eternally
as we dance in top-hats and long tails,
long dresses and high-heel shoes.
The music is to glide for
the chandeliers to die for
but death is watching in his
noiseless tapping shoes.
Tip-toe, tip-toe, tip-toe.
We mourn the moments of a young lass
who danced forever in scarlet ballet shoes
sold by the peddler of ‘careful-what-you-wish-for-dreams.’
We mourn the moments of her lost dreams
trapped in enchanted shoes that won’t let go
it’s like the muse that stings, and makes us
insomniacs night after night.
Fred and Ginger dance onto our tv screens
We’re hearing their repartee twirling
in the early morning gleam.
Our souls seek a rhythm they can keep
Our hearts go clippity-clip-clip-clip.
Can patterned steps bring some peace to us?
We Fox trot, Charleston, Boogy Woogy and Waltz
Rap and Tap, flamenco and modern dance.
Ginger and Fred correct our steps one by one.
We dizzy wizzy round our dream maypole
And an African beat takes hold of our feet.
We’re dancing the world beyond these shores
beyond this time, beyond this space,
beyond human made limitations and Holly Wood screens.
We’re dancing ourselves
a united human race.
(c) June Perkins
based on Maypole, p. 11 Shadow Puppets. Made quite a few changes to this one.
On the Ocean Shores
1.
The
Child on
The ocean shore
Lost to his father
Gone from a future life.
The
Father at
The funeral march
Wrapped in his grief
Unable to say, ‘Please Don’t
Show
The photograph
Of my son
Who I tried to
Save from war and ocean.’
The
World that
Circulated the image
Again and again when
They wanted to say ‘stop.’
And
The image
Doing endless rounds
Did it help them?
Did it bring him back?
2.
Unconsenting
Lost one
Winging his way
Away from the war
To the sky of dreams.
There
Are no
Words that will
Bring him home again
He’s left wars far behind.
Counting
The clicks
One by one
Today no time for
Poetry that turns people inwards.
Open
The wings
In the skylights
Above this day turning
Poetry ever outwards to peace.
There
are no
Words that will
Say everything you need
Only small attempts at flight.
3.
Can
Beauty and
Politics walk hand
In hand like friends
To coax the audience to wake?
Can
Politics and
Beauty wash away
layers of makeup logic
That defy time and truth?
Can
My eyes
Climb walls to
Fly with the ibis
In the urban skyline?
Can
The skyline
Beckon me to
Climb in to poems
Seeing, dreaming, waking, crying, activating?
Activating
My poetry
To tear down
Walls by mapped lines
Activating, crying, waking, dreaming, seeing.
(c) June Perkins
Handle with Care
A poem for peace
the morning news unsettles
and reminds
for many there is no luxury
to look for daily balance
only the beginning of an end
lives blasted out of the sky
children bombed on the beach
apocalyptic movies due
at the cinema soon
and on the way to when healing arrives
the places where there is the
beginning of a beginning
every moment
is now handle with care
the places where tear drops
bomb the hope just out of reach
long for the time
visions of one world
might be in the real world soon
the temporary bandages we put on things
attempted treaties delicately achieved
are never enough
when will they make way for the time
when unity might
beam its sunlight
through leaves of green
to blind the apocalypse of now?
(c) June Perkins
Ripple Poetry 