Waves swishing over beaches
Bring remnants of ocean lives
While erasing my footprints
Which is the ghost,
Me or them?
Copyright © 2018 Kim Whysall-Hammond
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Tag Archives: philosophy
A poem is never finished, only abandoned
A ‘Found Poem’ from William Hazlitt – ‘Lectures on the English Poets’:
Poetry is imagination and the passions
whatever gives immediate pleasure
or pain
language which the heart holds.
It is not a mere frivolous accomplishment.
Wherever there is a sense
of beauty, or power, or harmony
there is poetry.
The rest is mere oblivion,
a dead letter.
Copyright © 2018 Kim Whysall-Hammond
To be a pilgrim
Who would true valour see,
Let him come hither;
One here will constant be,
Come wind, come weather.
There’s no discouragement
Shall make him once relent
His first avowed intent,
To be a pilgrim.
Whoso beset him round
With dismal stories
Do but themselves confound;
His strength the more is.
No lion can him fright,
He’ll with a giant fight,
But he will have a right
To be a pilgrim.
Hobgoblin, nor foul fiend,
Can daunt his spirit:
He knows, he at the end
Shall life inherit.
Then fancies fly away,
He’ll fear not what men say,
He’ll labour night and day
To be a pilgrim.
John Bunyan
Although I am not religious, I was brought up within the Church of England, and we had a Christian service every morning at school. So I grew up singing many fine old hymns that stay with me today. One such was ‘To be a pilgrim’ a poem by John Bunyan set to music by Ralph Vaughan Williams using the traditional Sussex melody “Monk’s Gate“. I love it deeply and thought I’d share the original poem with you today.
I know several hymns completely to heart, including Blake’s ‘Jerusalem’ (as all good Englishwomen and cricket lovers should), as well as the lesser known ‘Hills of the North rejoice’.
Its interesting that I remember the poetic ones…..
A poem by Richard Feynman
Richard Feynman was not only a brilliant physicist but one of the 20th Century’s great thinkers. He also loved playing pranks and thumbing his nose at authority. And, he wrote poetry!
There are the rushing waves
mountains of molecules
each stupidly minding its own business
trillions apart
yet forming white surf in unison
Ages on ages
before any eyes could see
year after year
thunderously pounding the shore as now.
For whom, for what?
On a dead planet
with no life to entertain.
Never at rest
tortured by energy
wasted prodigiously by the Sun
poured into space.
A mite makes the sea roar.
Deep in the sea
all molecules repeat
the patterns of one another
till complex new ones are formed.
They make others like themselves
and a new dance starts.
Growing in size and complexity
living things
masses of atoms
DNA, protein
dancing a pattern ever more intricate.
Out of the cradle
onto dry land
here it is
standing:
atoms with consciousness;
matter with curiosity.
Stands at the sea,
wonders at wondering: I
a universe of atoms
an atom in…
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Give me the night
Give me the night, for darkness is where creation happens.
That same night where fears emerge
in which the future cannot be seen
is also where love is made
where magic happens
where we are renewed.
Let there be light, but no, not yet.
Darkness enfolds, cherishes.
Dark matter and energy make up most of the universe
without them none of this would exist.
We were animated and brought into existence
by and in the dark.
Let us now go to the dark places for answers.
Copyright © 2018 Kim Whysall-Hammond
To Stand and Stare?
How does the time disappear?
Water evaporates under direct heat.
Time evaporates
under a withering glut of
the unexpected
the unplanned
and unremembered.
Distractions distract.
People with no time steal yours
with delays and waiting.
And.
in this century,
with endless updates
on sites you should leave alone.
Copyright © 2018 Kim Whysall-Hammond
Orphan on Vita Brevis
My poem Orphan has today been published by a new Literary magazine, Vita Brevis
https://vitabrevisliterature.wordpress.com/
This new magazine on WordPress aims “to publish work that shows a keen awareness of not only art’s beauty and immortality but life’s toils and finiteness.”
They are currently looking for submissions.
Mimic
Words are blunt instruments
Poetry sharpens them
Tries to bring them to a point
To break the silence
Copyright © 2017 Kim Whysall-Hammond
Shodo
Art and philosophy
Elegant, sparse, fluid
With singular precision
Product of a moment
Product of a life’s practice
Product of the ages
Open to all with the time and open focus
Pad left open, pen laid down
Beauty and meaning await
Copyright © 2017 Kim Whysall-Hammond
Translation
Lost between the words
is true meaning
the real message
perhaps the marriage
perhaps the correct diagnosis.
We all use metaphors
similes
when describing emotions and pains.
Doctors and spouses
should by rights be poets
for poetry conveys what is lost in translation.
Copyright © 2017 Kim Whysall-Hammond
A poem inspired by the quote:
Poetry is what gets lost in translation.
Robert Frost
