They crane, rotate, jerk
goof their necks around
taking a series of snapshots
looking for the main chance
make significant snap judgments about the speed and distance of a target
insect, mouse, frog, slug
or the neighbours cat
Do not question their motives
lest they destroy you.
Copyright © 2021 Kim Whysall-Hammond
Looking for light, hearing it’s echoes
while shadows criticise and despair
I’m hanging on Hopes rocky crags
and getting that second jab…..
Copyright © 2021 Kim Whysall-Hammond
Today at 9:30am! Yes!
When you are old you
don’t understand
the plot of any Avengers film
but do understand
personal comfort is important
hence the clothes you are wearing
Gladly point out that nobody
really knows what a blockchain is
start to ask things like
“Who needs that many tattoos?”
find you are saving everything
and wasting nothing
particularly stale leftovers
expect to have at least one ache or pain at all times.
Being old is a state of mind
when you are old
you don’t have to pretend anymore.
Copyright © 2021 Kim Whysall-Hammond
This isn’t poetry, just me being indulgent on a Sunday night….….again….
I was born in London, went to university in London and still love my home town, even though I will never live there again.
Heres a wonderful bit from the Opening Ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics:
I know a funny little man,
As quiet as a mouse,
Who does the mischief that is done
In everybody’s house.
There’s no one ever sees his face,
And yet we all agree
That every plate we break was cracked
By Mr., Nobody
‘Tis he who always tears our books,
who leaves our doors ajar;
he pulls the buttons from our shirts,
and scatters pins afar,
that squeaking door will always squeak,
because of this you see:
we leave the oiling to be done
by Mr Nobody.
He puts damp wood upon the fire,
So kettles cannot boil;
His are the feet that bring in mud
And all the carpets soil.
The papers always are mislaid,
Who had them last but he?
There’s no one tosses them about
But Mr. Nobody
She’s a rescue chicken
no rest for her
half her feathers missing
she’s one tough bird
Small, brown, determined
she plans to sneak back in
wirecutters in beak
to cut free the other chickens
Who says a rescue chicken
needs tender care?
This one’s for the liberation
of battery hens everywhere
Copyright © 2021 Kim Whysall-Hammond
This poem sprung into my head upon reading Jim Feeneys wonderful poem Oprah Among the Chickens, where he asks:
Is a rescue chicken
a chicken that has been rescued by people
or is it a chicken that rescues people?
Well, I had a different idea………
The photo comes from the excellent British Hens Welfare Trust.
All bets are off in the teenage years
You still share your child’s hopes and fears
But they are a child no more –Can you hear that slammed door?
It’s a bumpy ride–Sometimes Jekyll, sometimes Hyde
You love them to bits, you can’t stand them anymore
And there again is that slamming door
You glimpse a young woman, you glimpse a young man –Try to catch them if you can
Sometimes it seems they’re a toddler again –Needing to share some of the pain
Do you remember when this was you?
Now you know what your parents went through……
Copyright © 2015 Kim Whysall-Hammond
I thought this would resonate with all those living with Teeenagers in Lockdown…..
Another great poem from Jim Feeney at Stopdraggingthepanda. Enjoy!
The Poet’s Circle on Zoom
Way back when, in the time before Covid,
the Poet’s Circle would meet once a month
at The Post-Coital Beetle
for an evening of mixing metaphors.
Last week after much discussion
we had our first session on Zoom
and I don’t mind telling you
it was a white horse of a different kettle
a whole other crap shoot.
There were problems of course,
some of our members
had difficulties with the technology
and that was just the tip of the molehill,
as one of the poets observed
you can lead a leopard to water
but you can’t make him change his tricks;
but when The Academic Poet suggested
that metaphor has no place in modern poetry
that was when the spittle really hit the screen
it all went to hell in a hand basket
and that’s an idiom not a metaphor.
I tried to cool…
View original post 49 more words
The book of my enemy has been remaindered
And I am pleased.
In vast quantities it has been remaindered
Like a van-load of counterfeit that has been seized
And sits in piles in a police warehouse,
My enemy’s much-prized effort sits in piles
In the kind of bookshop where remaindering occurs.
Great, square stacks of rejected books and, between them, aisles
One passes down reflecting on life’s vanities,
Pausing to remember all those thoughtful reviews
Lavished to no avail upon one’s enemy’s book –
For behold, here is that book
Among these ranks and banks of duds,
These ponderous and seeminly irreducible cairns
Of complete stiffs.
The book of my enemy has been remaindered
And I rejoice.
It has gone with bowed head like a defeated legion
Beneath the yoke.
What avail him now his awards and prizes,
The praise expended upon his meticulous technique,
His individual new voice?
Knocked into the middle of next week
His brainchild now consorts with the bad buys
The sinker, clinkers, dogs and dregs,
The Edsels of the world of moveable type,
The bummers that no amount of hype could shift,
The unbudgeable turkeys.
Yea, his slim volume with its understated wrapper
Bathes in the blare of the brightly jacketed Hitler’s War Machine,
His unmistakably individual new voice
Shares the same scrapyart with a forlorn skyscraper
Of The Kung-Fu Cookbook,
His honesty, proclaimed by himself and believed by others,
His renowned abhorrence of all posturing and pretense,
Is there with Pertwee’s Promenades and Pierrots –
One Hundred Years of Seaside Entertainment,
And (oh, this above all) his sensibility,
His sensibility and its hair-like filaments,
His delicate, quivering sensibility is now as one
With Barbara Windsor’s Book of Boobs,
A volume graced by the descriptive rubric
“My boobs will give everyone hours of fun.”
Soon now a book of mine could be remaindered also,
Though not to the monumental extent
In which the chastisement of remaindering has been meted out
To the book of my enemy,
Since in the case of my own book it will be due
To a miscalculated print run, a marketing error –
Nothing to do with merit.
But just supposing that such an event should hold
Some slight element of sadness, it will be offset
By the memory of this sweet moment.
Chill the champagne and polish the crystal goblets!
The book of my enemy has been remaindered
And I am glad.
by Clive James
It’s Christmas Eve and the kitchen is a mess
everything crusted with flour as more pastry is made
because someone has eaten all the mince pies already.
The jelly stuffed full of Rum soaked sponges has finally set
providing a foundation for our Christmas Trifle
and the Christmas Cake has been iced
with red rocketships rather than holly.
Meanwhile someone is melting dark chocolate
to make a Yule Log the way Grandad used to
and not looking guilty at all.
I smile and close the door on my adult sons as
their chocolate fuelled laughter resounds in my ears.
Christmas is finally here!
Copyright © 2020 Kim Whysall-Hammond
This poem appeared yesterday on Sarah Connors Advent Calendar, but I couldn’t help but blog it again today, as it is about our own little Christmas Eve tradition.
Many years ago, I would leave the bulk of the Christmas baking until Christmas Eve, and have an all day marathon with my two little boys. By the time Daddy came home from work, they were happy and above all tired. Not over excited at all, so sleep came easy to them and Father Christmas could drink his Calvados, eat his mince pie and fill those stockings.
The mess is a family joke –when they were young, somehow the house on Christmas Eve was littered with floury handprints…
As they grew up, the lads decided to do all the baking (and a lot of eating) on thier own. They make the Christmas Cake (a traditional fruit cake), mince pies, a chocolate Yule Log cake, and a Trifle. And yes, extra batches of pies are made, as the first batch always vanishes.
They cook the main meal on Christmas Day too, so we are very lucky parents!
