You cuddle up to me in your sleep, comforted by mother warmth
What do you dream little man, my child full of wonder
You exhaust me by day and then enthrall me at your time of sleeping
Always asking for more, lifting my soul and life
Every day is an adventure for us
As I discover the world in and through your eyes
Copyright © 2017 Kim Whysall-Hammond
I wrote this poem when my sons were much much younger….they are both adults now!
Two blue eyes and the tilting of your head
Fourteen when we met
Seventeen in love
Your three rings encompass my fingers
Engagement and Wedding
Yellow sapphire for eternity
Copyright © 2021 Kim Whysall-Hammond
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire
Consumed with that which it was nourish’d by.
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
by William Shakespeare
This sonnet needs to read out loud. It is addressed to a younger lover….
My heart is like a singing bird
Whose nest is in a water’d shoot;
My heart is like an apple-tree
Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;
My heart is like a rainbow shell
That paddles in a halcyon sea;
My heart is gladder than all these
Because my love is come to me.
Raise me a dais of silk and down;
Hang it with vair and purple dyes;
Carve it in doves and pomegranates,
And peacocks with a hundred eyes;
Work it in gold and silver grapes,
In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys;
Because the birthday of my life
Is come, my love is come to me.
It is my Birthday today…..
As once we learnt the grammar of marriage
Entanglements of love and domesticity
Now we study the syntax of ageing
Imperative aches, significant meanings
We plan journeys we have yet to take
Embark on the greatest challenge of all
Copyright © 2021 Kim Whysall-Hammond
Moon dust pervades our lives
Giant steps were what we took
When we started aged seventeen
We have spent happy times on this moon
Half walking half bouncing
Across the years
On or under, we are gleeful lunatics
Still glorious in our love
Copyright © 2016 Kim Whysall-Hammond
It is a series of fond stories and memories
starting with its absence and the mothers who
would not countenance our engagement without a ring.
Then the jewellers assistant who pointed out the best of the cheap
“The poverty stricken student line of engagement rings”.
And the single small diamond that I grew to love
to know the way it shed light through its carbon heart
that I lost playing in the park one day with our little sons.
You were happy we still had the setting while
I mourned my sparkling companion.
A new stone has lived resplendent in the ring for long enough
that I treasure its own foibles, although it was a stranger at first.
But the cheap gold setting last year faltered, twisted, opened
now lives out its own lockdown in the box
waiting for the Jewellers to re-open.
Copyright © 2021 Kim Whysall-Hammond
My response to dVerse Poets Pub Poetics: Object Poems
The idea is to take an object and focus on the abstract and also give our poems the title ‘THIS IS NOT A…’
We should choose an object from inside the home or outdoors, look past its obvious characteristics and uses, and spare the details. Instead, we should write about the connection it has to us or what it represents: what it means, the memories it holds; the emotions it evokes, etc.
Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river
You can hear the boats go by
You can spend the night beside her
And you know that she’s half crazy
But that’s why you want to be there
And she feeds you tea and oranges
That come all the way from China
And just when you mean to tell her
That you have no love to give her
Then she gets you on her wavelength
And she lets the river answer
That you’ve always been her lover
And you want to travel with her
And you want to travel blind
And you know that she will trust you
For you’ve touched her perfect body with your mind.
And Jesus was a sailor
When he walked upon the water
And he spent a long time watching
From his lonely wooden tower
And when he knew for certain
Only drowning men could see him
He said “All men will be sailors then
Until the sea shall free them”
But he himself was broken
Long before the sky would open
Forsaken, almost human
He sank beneath your wisdom like a stone
And you want to travel with him
And you want to travel blind
And you think maybe you’ll trust him
For he’s touched your perfect body with his mind.
Now Suzanne takes your hand
And she leads you to the river
She is wearing rags and feathers
From Salvation Army counters
And the sun pours down like honey
On our lady of the harbour
And she shows you where to look
Among the garbage and the flowers
There are heroes in the seaweed
There are children in the morning
They are leaning out for love
And they will lean that way forever
While Suzanne holds the mirror
And you want to travel with her
And you want to travel blind
And you know that you can trust her
For she’s touched your perfect body with her mind.
Leonard Cohen (1933 – 2016)
So, I’ve cheated a bit, as these are song lyrics, but Leonard was also a published poet, and these words are surely poetry…..
I want you to know
one thing.
You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.
Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.
If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.
If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.
But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.
by Pablo Neruda
Lesbia, come, let us live and love, and be
deaf to the vile jabber of the ugly old fools,
the sun may come up each day but when our
star is out…our night, it shall last forever and
give me a thousand kisses and a hundred more
a thousand more again, and another hundred,
another thousand, and again a hundred more,
as we kiss these passionate thousands let
us lose track; in our oblivion, we will avoid
the watchful eyes of stupid, evil peasants
hungry to figure out
how many kisses we have kissed.
Written by Catullus
Translated from the Latin by Michael G. Donkin
https://intranslation.brooklynrail.org/latin/eleven-poems-of-catullus/
My Cheeseseller loves Catullus, because he’s usually very very rude and it was OK to read that in Latin Classes at school! I picked a clean one…..
