Fossil (as published in Andromeda Spaceways)

Transfixed by desert heat
we scan the cliff once more
new techniques allow us
to find smaller and smaller variations
display greater detail
and so, next to the dinosaur bones
we found the stone tablet, embossed
and also, carved ever so finely
a flower blossom
so not a counting of prey killed
as found before
debate rages, but preliminary analysis
indicates the planets oldest love poem

Copyright © 2019 Kim Whysall-Hammond

This poem was first published in issue 76 of Andromeda Spaceways Magazine, September 2019.

Thank you Tom and Michelle!

Friday Poem: First Love

Falling in love was like falling down the stairs
Each stair had her name on it
And he went bouncing down each one like a tongue-tied
lunatic
One day of loving her was an ordinary year
He transformed her into what he wanted
And the scent from her
Was the best scent in the world
Fifteen he was fifteen
Each night he dreamed of her
Each day he telephoned her
Each day was unfamiliar
Scary even
And the fear of her going weighed on him like a stone
And when he could not see her for two nights running
It seemed a century had passed
And meeting her and staring at her face
He knew he would feel as he did forever
Hopelessly in love
Sick with it
And not even knowing her second name yet
It was the first time
The best time
A time that would last forever
Because it was new
Because he was ignorant it could ever end
It was endless

by Brian Patten

Mask

You unmasked me
With your honesty and affection
At seventeen, I knew loneliness
Until you unmasked me
Showed me the world made new by you

You unmasked me
I no longer needed to hide away
Lost in my own family
You gave me your life, our life
We have made a new family
Unmasked

Copyright © 2017 Kim Whysall-Hammond

Changeling

Once we climbed hills in a breath
contemplated clouds as
fantastic ruins on the horizon

Now you are silent, I don’t know
what light your eyes see

Wind and sea both murmur
the poetry of things insinuates
into our hearts.

Copyright © 2020 Kim Whysall-Hammond

Friday Poem: Love Song

If I could write words
Like leaves on an Autumn Forest floor
What a bonfire my letters would make.
If I could speak words  of water
You would drown when I said
'I love you'.

By Spike Milligan

Note: This post was typed directly into the verse block as advised by various WP Happiness Engineers. However, the poem is STILL in Courier, which is an awful font, especially for poetry.  My apologies, but it's not my fault.

Standing on Dunkery

Any hill will do
They all are sacred, but
Dunkery at twilight
As mist seeps up from
Purple heather
Horizons broaden out
And valleys settle into shadow

Sheep bleat, asking for their land back
But we walk the broad path
To a scattered mound of stone
Skirting nervous wild ponies
As the sun paints them golden

Ponies never ask, it is always theirs
As it belonged to the mound builders
Five thousand years ago
As it belongs
And doesn’t belong
To us all
But especially tonight
To me and mine

Copyright © 2020 Kim Whysall-Hammond

 

Written in response to this weeks EarthWeal challenge “Sacred Landscapes“. Exmoor is very special and it’s highest point, Dunkery Beacon, even more so.

Sky

The sky seduces me
fills my eyes.
Staring out at grey rains today
blessedly cooling
remembering white noons
brick red sunsets, lemon dawns
whales breaching, jellyfish jellying
wind in hair and lungs
exhilaration and joy
memories that tip toe in
hand in hand with all my loves and woes
happinesses, griefs.
I hum songs of the sky
her shadows and canvases
float in my own internal ocean
drift and dream.

Each time I see her, I am joy.

 

Copyright © 2020 Kim Whysall-Hammond

 

BLM

If they don’t matter, none of us do
if they cant feel secure, who is?
I don’t feel privileged,
as a woman I will not walk the fields here alone.
But I am far more privileged than
George, Breonna, Rayshard
and all those others over all those years.
May my world and their world become one.

Copyright © 2020 Kim Whysall-Hammond

 

If I were Midas

If I were Midas
I would not touch you of course
But I would touch everything around you
Fill your life with golden splendour

If I were Homer
My next epic would have you as hero
Magnificent in your helmet and breastplate
Fighting on the shores by a walled city

If I were Leonidas
I would come back on my Shield
Having died defending you
And all we hold dear

If I were Clytemnestra
I would forgive you your war absences
And even Cassandra
I would stand by your side

Copyright © 2020 Kim Whysall-Hammond

 

For Tony on his Birthday

London

Emerging from the Tube you clothe me
with dusty breath and ambient noise
I feel you living restlessly
lifeforce surging through centuries
pulsing through busy streets
I turn a corner and a garden churchyard
filled with lunchers and tourists
leads me to rest

Leaving you in a plane I reach down
pet your raised questioning head
sooth and smooth your black silky fur
I have run from you as you’ve
preyed upon my soul my heart
your begging eyes always
bring my return

Copyright © 2020 Kim Whysall-Hammond

My love poem to my old home town, lying quietly at present, but she will shake off the blues and arise……