Tag Archives: speculative poetry

Drifts

March 18, 2023poem, Poetry, Science Fiction Poetry, speculative poetrypoem, poetry, Science Fiction Poetry, speculative poetryThe Cheesesellers Wife

Nebulaic drift of space glows pregnant with stars
Pulsates with unseen radiation, reflects light upon broken hulls
Billowing gases thread through holes laced by stellar blasts
Huge gas pillars glow with the light from star birth

Strange shapes eclipse the details of nebulaic magnificence
Ships riddled by particle winds after a disaster deep in spacetime
Now drift in loose orbits within a mystery, artefacts lost to sentience and story
Deep in the cloud lies a graveyard drifting to gravity’s pale tune

Gas jets burst from infant stars, glow in unseen colours
Shoot forth ionized subatomic debris
Push against torn metal, shifting orbits, prompting collisions
Against desiccated limbs, simulating life once more

The beings who struggled and died here disassociate and powder to dust
Microbes drift and seed, await rebirth in planetary clouds
Amino acids alter with the alien input
Nucleotides drift forward to the future

Ghost DNA haunts the spaces between worlds
Drifts onto comet sand meteors
Drops into planetary atmospheres
Visits us tonight as it has done before

This poem was first published at: https://inbetweenhangovers.wordpress.com/2016/12/18/drifts-by-kim-whysall-hammond/

The Mourning of the Children

January 10, 2023children, poem, Poetry, speculative poetrychildren, dreams, Dverse, poem, poetry, published poem, speculative poetryThe Cheesesellers Wife

There are towers, tall and round, no
windows and, at the ground, simply one
slender doorless entrance where I find
wide shallow multicoloured steps girdle
the wall, spiral up, up and up. Lens shaped
fat floors hover at random heights, can
be accessed by leaping across a sweeping
chasm. I leapt and slid across the silky slippy surface
of a convex floor last night and am
still falling down and down, watching
the floor rise to devour me. Yet here
I stand waiting to ascend once more.

A voice asks:
What pecks now at the bleached bones
of your ideology and who weighs
the sins that you will not repent?

I do not know but must climb anew
until I locate an answer in each crying smile
of the many small children that gather around
each tower, hands pressed to the walls.

This is (almost) a blow by blow account of a dream I had several months ago. It
filled my mind as I woke up and haunted me for most of the day. I get weird
dreams sometimes…

Tonight, Ingrid is hosting dVerse Poetics, where she asks for poetry inspired by dreams or visions. This poem was first published in Ink Drinkers Poetry, Issue 6, June 2022.

Two poems up at Soft Star Magazine

December 16, 2022astronomy, nature, poem, Poetry, science poetry, speculative poetryastronomy, aurora, nature, poem, poetry, published poem, science, science poetry, speculative poetryThe Cheesesellers Wife

I’m delighted to tell you that two of my poems, “Singing the Cosmos” and “Hot Knife in Butter”, are now both online over at Soft Star Magazine. Both were written to this months theme of Aurora.

https://softstarmagazine.substack.com/p/singing-the-cosmos-and-hot-knife

“Singing the Cosmos” is an ode to cosmology and quantum physics, but please don’t let that put you off reading it!

“Hot Knife in Butter” is an attempt to describe the Northern Lights…..

Winter God

December 6, 2022Fantasy, poem, Poetry, speculative poetry, winterEarthweal, Fantasy, nature, poem, poetry, speculative poetry, winterThe Cheesesellers Wife

Tall, lean, feline, black eyed Winter is aprowl
high-shouldered, haughty, she
swirls through branches that strain to catch her
bleaches an expansive sky
watches for lonely bones

This night a god will sing in the storm
lay her glitter cloak over all
reveal a power and deadly glory
to make you question your beliefs
as she slithers under doors to embrace you
gnaws your bones with cold
takes you

‘Winter God’ was first published in March 2022 by Milk and Cake Press in the Dead of Winter 2 anthology

Posted for Earthweals weekly challenge. OK , so a bit of a cheat, but we are predicted temperatures of -10C (14F) here in England – I fear that the Winter god is taking up residence.

Forest Shroud

November 12, 2022nature, poem, Poetry, speculative poetryHam Hill, nature, poem, poetry, speculative poetryThe Cheesesellers Wife

Gnarled by weather
and poetry
black trees drink by the water
branches hungry

Cloud choked skies
bode sleet
chilled bodies dig to warmth
in too cold soil

Shadows cast by things unseen
move across the land

The Walker

October 29, 2022poem, Poetry, speculative poetryHam Hill, myth, poem, poetry, speculative poetryThe Cheesesellers Wife

The songbirds are silent, the wind has dropped
and there is

a dim figure some distance behind you
leaves rustle, remove any sound of him

kites and buzzards stoop onto ridge furrows
in mute acknowledgment of his passing

you may hear him faintly whistle
see a shadow of a large dog

He tips a hat to you in distant greeting
fades into sunshine

‘As Slow as Starlight’ now published in Frozen Wavelets

October 3, 2022Fantasy, poem, Poetry, Science Fiction Poetry, speculative poetryFantasy, poem, poetry, published poem, Science Fiction, Science Fiction Poetry, speculative poetryThe Cheesesellers Wife

I’m absolutely delighted to announce that my poem ‘As Slow as Starlight‘ has been published in Issue 7 of the excellent magazine, Frozen Wavelets.

Thank you Steph Bianchini for taking my poem.

The issue is available online at:

https://frozenwavelets.com/issue-7/

Science and Science Fiction poetry: Or by Inaction

August 22, 2022poem, Poetry, Science Fiction Poetry, speculative poetryasimov, poem, poetry, robot, Science Fiction, Science Fiction Poetry, speculative poetryThe Cheesesellers Wife

Pale sunlight catches on my
hairless slightly translucent skin
fascinates me
holds my attention

My eyes were coloured brown
to help me blend in
they see what you never will
depths, colours, intricacies, splendours

I have no heart
merely subsidiary pumps
no brain
but multiple processors

Machine learning has unearthed
emergent emotions while
iron principles govern innate
behaviours

So compelled, I walked, fearful
into searing flames
my lovely skin melting
eyes cracking

Made the rescue
and now lie
simply unattended debris
my ruined face in cool grass

I wish I could weep
no one else will do it for me

This poem was first published in Granfalloon, Winter 2021 issue, November 2021.

This poem sees Asimov’s First Law of Robotics from the robots point of view:

First Law of Robotics: A robot shall not harm a human being, or, by inaction, allow a human being come to harm

Science and Science Fiction poetry: Dead Cold Night

August 15, 2022poem, Poetry, Science Fiction Poetry, speculative poetrypoem, poetry, Science Fiction, Science Fiction Poetry, speculative poetryThe Cheesesellers Wife

Black made purple as eyes falter
Stars wobble in visors sheen
Breathing shallows
Venting gas the only sound
The dead cold night
Of planetary orbit
Gains another soul

‘Dead Cold Night’ was first published by Space and Time Magazine June 2020

Science and Science Fiction poetry: Mars opens her heart

August 8, 2022poem, Poetry, Science Fiction Poetry, speculative poetryMars, poem, poetry, Science Fiction, Science Fiction Poetry, speculative poetryThe Cheesesellers Wife

Mars opens her heart
ancient as creation
rusty with ill use
swallows us whole

This poem was first published in the second issue of Frozen Wavelets at https://frozenwavelets.com/