Welcome

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juneperkins
June Perkins (taken by Heidi Den Ronden)

“June Perkins is a writer and photographer of Papua New Guinean and Australian background now living in Brisbane.  She published photography, documentary, and stories with ABC Open between 2011-15 and has a PhD in writing empowerments.

She is a university writing tutor, blogger and crowd funded Magic Fish Dreaming, publishing it with her own press, Gumbootspearlz Press. In 2016 June won an ASA writing mentorship for picture books and is now pitching work.

***

Welcome to the blog.

I blog literary events, interviews with creatives, life in Queensland,  progress on my writing projects, and the writing process.

Looking forward to your comments.

Please respect all copyright for this work. If you want to make use of something you need my prior written permission. See COPYRIGHT HERE.

I may not be the relevant copyright holder in all cases (reblogs).

If printing anything for classroom use please keep a CAL record and credit it.

Please respect all copyright for this work. If you want to make use of something you need my prior written permission. See COPYRIGHT HERE.

I am a member of the following:

Profiles at   

Write Links 

Just Write For Kids

SCWIBI

Australian Children’s Poetry

Australian Society of Authors

Creative Kids Tales  

 

You can also find me at

Twitter   Facebook    Vimeo    Pinterest    Nineteen Months

Magic Fish Dreaming 

Dust

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Ripple Poetry

Creative Commons Flickr – Anna From Dresden

“We cherish the hope that through the loving-kindness of the All-Wise, the All-Knowing, obscuring dust may be dispelled and the power of perception enhanced, that the people may discover the purpose for which they have been called into being.” Tablets of Baha’u’llah, Ṭarázát (Ornaments)

Dust
obscuring
covering
settling
coating the everyday of the soul in
a thickening mantle of swirling
loss, regret, anxiety, confusion

Questions

Surround
impound
confound
and then

Astound

Divine breeze
released by spiritual words
chanted, sung or said into
Air
becoming light through melody
and memory
beyond dust

Peeling away veils

Visible for a moment
the sense of the soul’s shape
free falling
into
faith, connected, certitude
unfurling
feathered tips of wings

Then air filter light warning
the arrival of
more dust . . .

(c) June Perkins

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Grey and White

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Ripple Poetry

Maria Popova – Flickr Creative Commons

Grey and white streaks
begin to lace themselves
through my hair.

I embrace
the signs of wisdom
chasing through me there,
And all around me others
dye and tease their hair
to conceal their age
but that is their affair.

I don’t mind that they want to do this
and hold onto their esteem
but why does one say to me
‘You should dye your hair
you look so ancient and so old’

I explain to her
‘when I was younger
I looked younger than my age
and am happy to embrace
the white and grey that now
dance through my life.’

She cannot take a hint
and simply doesn’t understand
I don’t need a bottled colour
to conceal the process I’m now in
and now she wants to know
the colour of my youth.

Why do so many worship
forever staying young?

I…

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Paper Boats

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Ripple Poetry

Creative Commons Flickr Geson Ratnow

Paper boats conjure dreams
of petals soaked by
scents of the
ocean.

Traveling boats
float in shadows
people
who have a simple hope
for happy lands,

but white markers sink
in sandy earth
marking graves of people
who cannot resist new germs.

‘Once watched paper boats,’
grandfather paternal says
in Vietnamese
but nobody understands

no translators here.

So shadow puppets dance
for petals
falling from kumquat boughs.

(c) June Perkins

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Cyclone Poetry 3

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Ripple Poetry

If Glass Could Talk

for Jacque

If only all the tiny shards of glass
bottle brown
wine green
yellow and purple orchid swirls
could talk.

What would they say
if fragments realigned
knit themselves back together
like broken bones entwined in casts
and heroes walked?

What if the paralyzed
could miracle embrace
pain and grief
trauma and loss
till they walked with stars?

I breathe out Vincent’s starry night
from living room wall
to outside door
then coffee table book on my floor
I wonder – would he obsess about lost socks
from cyclone’s past?

(c) June Perkins, Words and Image

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Cyclone Inspired Poetry 2

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Ripple Poetry

by June Perkins

What Would Emily Say?

The creek is still here
skeleton bush returns bit by bit
but the swinging tree by the waterhole
is gone.

The tiny blue trimmed butterflies
hide with the dandelions
gold and brown ones nestle
deep into the green grass
capturing them with my camera
leaves them free
to fly.

Why do some children take red nets
and break wings of such beauty?
Why can’t they let them be?

Two friends at a round table
discussing Emily Dickinson
and how she had to speak to others
from another room.

She needed so much room
to write her words but
still she hid them away.

Butterflies hiding in the grass
sing of Emily and wonder
What would have made of cyclones?

(c) Words and Images by June Perkins

By June Perkins

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