Eloise and Other Verses

By Constanze Hawkins

In Eloise and Other Verses, Constanze Hawkins writes about loss and nature, both human and natural.

Through her depiction of loss we feel the characters of those experiencing and dealing with loss, we get a glimpse of aspects of human nature. Sometimes themes of loss are intertwined with scenes of nature. The author writes about a range of human sorrows, for example the loss of youth in ‘Dance Cockie Dance’ and the loss of a mother in ‘Mother Mother Magna Mater’. Loss is an inescapable part of the human condition and the author treats it with careful, thoughtful and poignant writing. Also included in this volume are poems portraying the natural beauty of nature. These few poems of the natural world offer new pictures of themes such as trees and the ocean. They make an interesting addition to this collection.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Jun 23, 2023
• ISBN: 9781398448360

Constanze Hawkins

Constanze Hawkins studied fashion and worked in the fashion industry until her retirement. She then began to write poetry in earnest. Constanze grew up in Melbourne (Victoria, Australia) and moved to Perth (Western Australia) with her young family when she was a young mother. Her love of natural world began in her own childhood. The family home was situated near a creek and much bushland and Constanze spent many happy hours playing and roaming there when she was a child. This fostered what became a lifelong love of the natural world.

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About the Author

Constanze Hawkins studied fashion at the Melbourne College of Textiles. She completed her studies after her marriage and her young family’s move to Perth, Western Australia, with a Graduate Certificate of Design from the Curtain University of Technology. She worked in fashion predominately as a patternmaker and grader until her retirement. Constanze then began to write poetry in earnest.

A recurring theme in the author’s first book, Eloise and Other Verses, is the inescapable human experience ‘Loss’. She became interested in loss when her father died, after her marriage break-up and then when her mother died. Her experience of loss is that it is often really dealt with alone. And this comes through in her poems about loss.

Constanze is also inspired by nature, human and natural. Interests she has had since childhood.

Copyright Information ©

Constanze Hawkins 2023

The right of Constanze Hawkins to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781398448353 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781398448360 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2023

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

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E14 5AA

Bliss

to waltz

with the lure

ghost of the lyre

aphony strummed

tuned to the silence of sighs.

Dance Cockie Dance

I sit with the seaweed on the shore

Dumb my senses

Dim my eyes

I am alive

So, we ran and we rushed forward with glee

To what—

We knew not

’Til the moment was gone

Old and bent

He dribbles he creeps

He was young once

He once dressed neat.

Green Bottle

She sat in the space

A bottlebrush in a green bottle

The air continued her demise

But

When she had breathed it all in

And the vacuum achieved

The state would be preserved

And

There would be no more to say.

Moving House

I took the photographs down from the wall

For I was moving house

The strange lady next to the strange man

Said leave them there they are ours

I looked at the pictures in my hands

Only the frames were mine

I hung them back on the wall

In the place where my photographs had stood

My photos were all gone.

Daybreak

The day is done

The sea is home

Back on the halfmoon shore

The sun sinks low

Drains the dregs

Light burns at the end of the sky

Footprints left on the sand

Strands of forever

Washed to be never

Lost to the memory of time

(Woman) is stronger alone.

An Autobiography

I was born

I am living

My mind dwells in my dreams

My body runs in a rut

I will die

Today I start living my dreams.

------Untitled------

They were

Old

She lay

In the hospital bed

He sat

In the chair by her side

Nurse came

To take her away

He could hardly

Get up

His head was down.

Mother Mother

Magna Mater

Mother, Mother, don’t look around

Mother, Mother, I have just fallen down

Mother, Mother, stare straight ahead

Pretend you did not hear the thud

I have grown quite tall now and can

Pick myself up, up from the cold hard floor

It does not matter that my love has gone

No, I don’t need your loving arms

It is the way we young prefer it today

We lick our own wounds and hurry away

Yes, we were so in love on the day

That we wed when vows of love

We exchanged with two rings

The man in the dress made a sign of the cross

"What we have joined here together today

Let no man put asunder

Now take her away, I’ve another at five

PLEASE no confetti on the lawn on the drive!"

The crowd all clapped and danced in their glee

Now it’s off to bed with the pair of thee

Consummate this sacrament holy

Now you’ll know what’s what by golly

Mother, Mother, you cried

Something bound us together awhile

You and I played our game of house

We are on our own feet now and trying to fly

Looking for new love to fill the hole

We don’t know that the gap that we see

Staring out at us plainly from each other’s eyes

Are the chasms we built in our own very hearts

The hollow escapes not love’s naked light

And the ditch that we see and accuse in the other

Engulfs us with horror. In wretchedness

The red blood of our souls is sapped

Drained are the words of our love’s vow

The mettle from our limbs has fled

Wasted arms are unable to hold that

Great empty space in our lover’s soul

No, it won’t work the way that it should

We will not seek this love again

No Mother, Mother, not again

We will match ourselves wisely

To our own reasoned taste

Or not again at all – at all

For into that abyss we do not want to look

Not again no not again

Mother, Mother, did you win?

When all those years you stayed with him

Mother, Mother, just one thing

What will I tell my own little girl

She has seen the truth with her

Beautiful blue eyes. Cloud them

My God she is but five. I know

You thought it was here that you’d win

Mother, Mother, thought