I see you
poem
How to Write a Poem to change the World
‘I want to change the world,’ said the young poet
‘with a poem that makes you think
long after reading it.
You don’t feel like you were lectured
but something subtle crept into your heart
made a hole that penetrated
all you thought you once were sure of
so you started asking questions.
Questions about what you could do to make
the world more peaceful as one individual
in one family in a number of communities
and in a neighborhood and a country.
And when you reached that point of asking your questions
the hole in your heart became
something that you climbed into, and healed with an action
and whilst your action might not be a poem
it could be a song or a class that you took
at school as a teacher or
maybe you had an opportunity
to do something enormous like make an invention
or start a project, perhaps very small, perhaps very large,
that would heal the world
and thinking back you felt changed because the poem did something
powerful whilst you were reading, it empowered you.’
And the young poet went looking for her poem that could
change the world – with a heart full of love that overflowed, and a strong desire to avoid lecturing others when she was full of questioning holes she herself had to fill- by looking at the poems and poets that had changed her. She sought poetry seeds for a peaceful poet’s tree.
To be continued….
(c) June Perkins
The World is Singin’ its Blues
The world is singin’ its blues
askin’ for a bit of time to heal
askin’ why it’s so hard to feel
that nothin’ we do is gonna make
peace be real
askin’ for a DJ who understands
the need for peace
who can give us some
musical release
to bleed out the fears
dress them in a mother’s tears
The world is ringin’ out its questions
why, oh why’s a piece of land
or your religion
something to kill or die for
and why are people so quick
to tie their fate to
those noose of hate?
askin’ for a DJ who can change the down beat
into an upbeat
bring some kind of optimism into play
dress that sorrow
in a technicolour tomorrow
The world is singin’ its blues
askin’ for a bit of time to heal
askin’ why it’s so hard to feel
that nothin’ we do is gonna make
peace be real
(c) June Perkins, words and image.
Handle with Care
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
longing 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
The Green Broom
Voice of the Bab’s Servant Mubarak
Sweeping, sweeping
Clearing pathways
For Him to walk on
Making a befitting place for Him
To be with Khadijih.
Sweeping, sweeping
Another auburn
Autumn leaf
Falling
Still not here
But assuring her
He will return
For each and all
Winter trees
Pencil like gray outlines
Fragile like her weeping.
But I know
He will return.
(c) June Perkins
Image Credit: Creative Commons Matteo Riva
Song for Martha
for Martha Root
By a rainbow tree in Honolulu
Rainbow languages are gently flowing
Singing, “Martha board your next canoe”
Whether she knows the next bend’s turning
Her heart is filled with a simple yearning
She is drawn to follow every rainbow
Searching the mysteries of its soul
On every continent she can only sing
Filled to the brim with her love of Him
Drawn on and on to where the next path is going
The red hues of her sacrifice growing
Her will with others does not always intertwine
But still on and on she rainbow dances
On boats, canoes, ferries aeroplanes and trains
Each stop is a spirit travel line
That feels itself drawn to the divine
On a train bound for glory
There’s the beginning of her next story
In each rioting mob within places of unrest
She tries to see glimmers of light
The dawn of orange and yellow in her sight
In her pale blue silk dress and brown overcoat
Accompanied by one small suitcase full mostly of books
She’ll travel the endless greens
On her way to visit Queen Marie
(c) June Perkins
(Published in Bahai World Order)
Weaving Sunset
Wishing
for sunset
to weave me
into memory
of her triumphant story
Never
forgetting
songs of sore fingers
waiting for mercy’s respite
She
is sunset’s daughter
sunrise’s sister
weaving freedom’s future
(c) June Perkins
Blue Bonnets
You can find my poetry and that of people who inspire me at Ripple Poetry.
This is my latest offering.
Funerals like rain
Fall from clouds
Young boys say ‘goodbye’
As father’s lowered to the ground
Mother stands alone
Tears become her shroud
Funeral goers utter not a sound.
She hears blue guitar strums
She’s pounding melancholy’s drums.
Texas and Tully are so far apart
Yet they share skies
Where hawks and ibis fly
Storms and troubles rock both their shores
Warn their people to depart.
She tells her children
the legend of the Texas Blue Bonnet flower
A young girl gave up her warrior doll,
The last reminder of family,
To invoke a higher power.
She burnt her warrior doll
Its head dress of blue feathers
Offered up its ashes
To the North, South, East and West Winds
So hunger and loss it would tether.
She cried herself to sleep.
Let her memory weep.
When she awoke
Never before seen flowers,
Clambered the mountains
Birds made their bowers
People drank from hope’s fountains.
The mother with the shroud
Inside’s the little girl
Who’ll burn her own warrior doll
She knows what must be done
She’ll let her dreams unfurl.
She’ll wait till all sleep then
Pull out her favourite guitar
Take those blue cords
Burn them, banish them
Scatter their ashes,
North, South, East and West.
The dry season will begin
Floods have had their fun
A looking- to-the-future music
will now begin to grow.
By June Perkins
Mother Made it So
I was a well groomed young lady because my mother always made it so.
She stressed ironed clothes, well brushed hair, and the best selection of hand-me-downs and St Vincent Wear, with the occasional new bargain thrown in.
Early photo albums always show her well dressed, but not conventionally so.
Sometimes she’s in saris, other times she’s in mini dresses with bee-hive hair.
Sometimes she’s in a grass skirt with a bikini top (because it’s Australia) ready for national dress events.
Make-up carefully applied, long lashes, now she looks like a Supreme.
Later there are leopard print clothes and bright vibrant purples and blues.
She’s usually slim, sometimes a little well- rounded, but only for a short time, then she’s slim again.
She moves (on a budget) with the times.
She moves with new geographies, Australia, not Papua New Guinea now.
She was generous with everything, including my time.
I was often the unpaid baby sitter for her friends and an old lady who once lived next door.
She was adopting the old ones to remind her of her mother.
She was making sure I knew how to clean, wash and cook and care for the old and the young.
She was taking me charity collecting for Red Cross, and we were running from big dogs guarding houses that don’t want charity collectors or anyone else at their door!
I was making mistakes, putting sugar with rice, wearing clothes that were out of fashion plus drawing on my sneakers.
I was trying to learn.
Patience has never been her strong point. Generosity has.
I didn’t know how to absorb what she was trying to teach me so, often I learnt something other than what she intended.
I learnt some people take too much from generous souls;
you can make a young boy leave his wheel chair with sheer will and lots of physical and emotional therapy and
you can change your future no matter how life begins.
She never gave up on the underdogs.
She was and still is critical, caring, and ferocious, all in one day.
She is my mother and she made me so.
My latest contribution to ABC Open. A new project begins Who Shaped Me
Image Credit: Mum from the Family Archives
World Citizen Dreaming 