Tag Archives: love

Uncle

Life, love, poem, Poetry, , , , ,

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

Dreaming of seeing you again

Amsterdam, Friends, Life, love, poem, Poetry, , , , ,

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….

Toddler

children, love, poem, Poetry, , , ,

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!

Friday Poem: Sonnet 73

Friday Poem, love, poem, Poetry, Shakespeare, , , , , , ,

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….

Friday Poem: A Birthday

Friday Poem, love, poem, Poetry, , , , ,

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.

By Christina Rossetti

It is my Birthday today…..

This is not an engagement ring

Life, poem, Poetry, , , , ,

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.

Friday poem: Suzanne

Friday Poem, love, poem, Poetry, , , , ,

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…..