I broke the doll almost on purpose
Trying to fit her into the toy tank
Determined to play my way
My own game not theirs
Broken dolls littered the playroom
Symbols of a girl who wasn’t
Broken dolls litter the promenade
Broken bodies strew the road
He broke them all on purpose
Because they do not play his game
Copyright © 2017 Kim Whysall-Hammond
First published by Califragile:
https://califragile.org/2017/09/23/broken-doll-by-kim-whysall-hammond/
When this all settles
I will walk along a stony beach
Stepping across rock pools
Looking for fossils
Life has been here before and will be after
Nothing was ever certain
Life was always frail
A bubble has burst
But we will float again
Life is all we have, treasure its small joys
When this all settles
We must mourn the dead
Unpick our mistakes
Grieve for lost chances
Life for us should never be the same
We have another danger
That may take us all
This is a rehearsal
Now we must save our world
Our grandchildren must live and thrive
Copyright © 2021 Kim Whysall-Hammond
The machine just doesn’t stop
but clambers across and smothers real life
capturing privacies, swapping
small unregarded freedoms
for dopamine flash rewards
and a watered down electronic
recognition of sorts.
The screen’s constant siren call
replacing small intimacies
for others not yet evaluated.
Interconnected yet further apart,
we stumble on into the present future.
Copyright © 2018 Kim Whysall-Hammond
First published at https://www.thesunlightpress.com/…/20…/10/30/present-future/
Waking up with Nanny in her soft double bed
the room white and pink with swans and roses
Sunday morning and you would bring milky tea
Hot in her best rose gold china cup and saucers
we would sip, little fingers raised as you left
Before we too rose
Later, your Saturday visits to our house
bringing a bounty of colourful comics to read
And a secret pocket of sweets, for Mum not to see
How my brothers and I took you for granted
Never noticed the shining love in your eyes
Your hand grasping mine in supplication
As they wheeled you, protesting to surgery
from which you did not return, your
faltering loving heart finally stopping
Under the anaesthetists care
Copyright © 2021 Kim Whysall-Hammond
You tread on the tail of my eye
carving crosswise through the crowd
that flows into the station
we greet with hugs, kiss cheeks
talk of our priceless opportunity
of a week together
after so long apart
Later, rinsing sorrow away
we linger out
a hundred glasses of wine
the clarity of close friends filling small talk
a lucid moon keeping us awake
and after we’re drunk, we’ll sleep
all heaven our blanket, earth our pillow
Copyright © 2021 Kim Whysall-Hammond
Inspired by Chinese poetry, this one is for our best friend, away in Amsterdam. Our first trip abroad will be to see him, but we do not know when that can be….
They looked and turned away
Londoners afraid to interact
With the girl sitting, weeping
On a stinkingly hot day in the city
Exclaiming that she had gone blind
Oversized suitcase abandoned near her feet
My feet
Someone pushed a cold drink into my hand
A woman’s voice comforted me
A stranger joined me on the step, asked where I was going
Told me that a long hot walk carrying a load
Had affected my sight
Sat until, miraculously, my sight returned
Then left
Pulling myself to my feet
I retrieved the offending suitcase
Slowly made my way to the Tube station
Continued my journey, moving from London to Oxford
Changing university, leaving friends and home city
Aiming for a Doctorate, I should have noted the omen
For I found loneliness and failure
Copyright © 2016 Kim Whysall-Hammond
Fist published by Silver Birch Press:
The unspeakable vastness
of the unconquerable dark
speaks to our hearts
where no harbour beckons
no port waits
A calling sky lids our lives
it shields, shelters
imprisons us
gravity the jailer to be overthrown
the well to climb out of
hand over hand
Climbing to where the only sounds are
a popping of particles
into matter phase
We will not see stars with our own eyes
nor hear the sounds of space
our travelling world
built of systems noise
ventilation hiss and engine thrum
will seep through our lives
even outside
suit noise and visors will hide
the photons trip
Yet unspeakable vastness
and unconquerable dark
will sink deep into our subconscious
refashioning our very selves
varying what is human
Will we wish to sink once more
into the trap of gravity
or shall we run with the particle streams
out into the dark?
Copyright © 2020 Kim Whysall-Hammond
‘Calling Sky’ was first published by Utopia Science Fiction in the April 2020 issue.
Cities with copper wire arteries
and children brimming in schools
placid farmlands scraped dry
soaked with chemistry
the steel sprung bones
of tall buildings shake
as the worlds wind wrestles
tears at it all in frustration
Copyright © 2021 Kim Whysall-Hammond
Houses hold memories
of those who once lived within
They remember when you return
say oh you’re here, we know you
Copyright © 2021 Kim Whysall-Hammond
Give me the hills
that I may look down upon life
and up into the infinite
that I may relish fresh air
and the walk behind me
Give me their space and quietude
the grace to understand
their perspective
Copyright © 2021 Kim Whysall-Hammond
Written for EarthWeal
