NATASHA ANNE KELLEHER

A Poem for You

What’s inspired YOU during Lockdown – collage image by Kate Willoughby.

UNLOCKED UNLEASHED UNABATED

(by Natasha Anne Kelleher March 2021)

Colour photo. Natasha Anne Kelleher pictured (centre) in the Barbican sunken gardens, with the Brutalist architecture of the waterfall behind her, greenery and flowers in front of her.
Natasha Anne Kelleher (photo by Kate Willoughby, @KateWilloughby8)

In 2019 we were living normal as can be

Then ominously came 2020

With it the deadly virus Covid 19

Lockdown commenced

Yet spirits never dented

Our creativity erupted

Bursting with new ideas

So read of some herewith

I am sure you will be pleased

Juliana Lottman spreads positivity

Painting uplifting messages

On all manner and shapes of stones

Leaving them in urban gardens

For everyone out walking to chance upon

Begging the question especially for children

Did the elusive fairies or mischievous gnomes

Leave them there for a secret message

To indelibly mark in our hearts

Renewing in us all creative sparks

Maxine Kwok adores music and beautifully plays violin

Being the conduit for heavenly inspirations

We are uplifted from lockdown’s dearth like grim

By the sound of Angels voices through strings

So deftly poignantly and emotionally played

Our inner life again is inspired to open again

Where our creativity can dance and enhance us

Yet by which nothing else it can from it be swayed

Blaise Treverton is flamboyant and colourful

Expressing this in his unique fashion designs

I am certain he loves and inspired soulfully by

Non finer world renowned Gaultier Wang and McQueen

It makes him inspirational living out his own designer dream

Isn’t it wonderful that clothes to adorn us and brighten our mood

Can make us look and feel just divine by

By a clever arrangement of cloth and seams

Niska Mathur loves art and photography

jewellery making too

Especially an image of her sister

Sitting in a beautiful yet empty art gallery

Is so poignant

Portraying the imbibing and appreciation

Of art’s creations at a time

When freedom is only within

Niska designs jewellery to adorn and signify

Our traditions and history

Diamonds to commit to a loved one

Sweet words engraved in hidden places

With promises of love for all eternity

Gold silver platinum the unbreakable symbols

As if our spirits which no-one can steal or break

Meg Hephner found joy playing the recorder

Bringing tranquillity in the ability

To use breath to sweetly make soothing tunes

As if capturing summer’s beautiful

Country birdsong calming and peace abounds

Upon hearing these soulful soothing sounds

Lesley Scoble was inspired to

Paint an emotive image of an NHS nurse

Clothed in protective garb of PPE

This inspired the flow of inner expressions

Of the tragic world wide pandemic

That left us all feeling as if we were

Drowning in an uncertain sea

Yet undeterred and unabated with time to effuse

Sliding paintbrushes across the canvas

Daring and dancing smoothing paint

Into wonderful scenes magically appearing

Through artist’s fingers where inspirations grow

Sketching a depiction of an inner landscape

From whence it hailed from…

We cannot always fathom or instinctively know

Lizzie Prescott Price loathes litter

How it destroys the environment’s

Aesthetic look and feel

Of all that should stay beautiful

But not always kept pristine

So kindly to ameliorate this blight

On Lizzie’s daily walks

She takes along her litter picker

To rid the view of all manor of discarded things

That mar the spaces we love appreciate and cherish

So once again tidied for everyone’s delight

Unhindered once again to gratefully safely

Amble quietly through dispelling any blues

Keeping our planet beautiful and for our pleasure peruse

Darren Ross made a film

Using a backdrop of a urban architecture

Depicting a tomb like psychic prison

Usually lit up by our happiness and freedom

Where we used to relax and roam without intrusion

Now it lies mostly deadly silent

Cut off we envy the outdoors

Motionless apart from water and a little flaura and fauna

Much regarded arching magnificent trees

Make us all so much more aware

Of how free they are compared to you and me

Ordered behind closed doors into isolation

Feeling never again to be free

Yet no matter how long we are sentenced

Through it many have become creatives

Swimming out of this pandemic catastrophe

The NHS helped those sick needing care and treatment

The true heroes not appreciated and paid enough by

The Ministers of the powers that be

Who seem to have no comprehension of thriving

Not this duty induced surviving

Surely they must see they can never ever repeat

Hazel Brothers likes collating a curioso

Of images and materials of all genres and textures

Ignites a blaze in her artistic virtuoso

To combine a myriad of aspects

Into a collage she mixes a piece that will transfix us

A vision of treasures to forever behold and respect

To evoke thought and break their hidden code plus

Gathering them into memory books

To inspire and remind us if feeling unsound

Creativity can drive and revive our artistic mode

Within and from it always stories will abound

Copyright Natasha Anne Kelleher March 2021
All rights reserved.

Commissioned by Kate Willoughby for her Culture Mile Imagine Project.

Natasha Anne Kelleher’s poem is also published on the Barbican Life Magazine website: https://barbicanlife.com/unlocked-unleashed-unabated/

Read more of Natasha Anne Kelleher’s work at bit.ly/EMOETRY

Kate’s Imagine Fund digital gallery:
bit.ly/MyImagineFundGallery

Funded by:

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