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Best Poems Written by Kim James

Below are the all-time best Kim James poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

Details | Kim James Poem

What I Want For Christmas


        A
	hot
	meal for two
	a
	new
	hat, coat and shoes
	a
	home
	with a door and 
	a good roof to stop the rain.
	and keep out the sound of bombs and bullets
	a
	safe
	place to bear my baby
	and a warm crib to lay him down to sleep
	with love and hope for a future that will not crucify him
	so not
	a lot
	to ask
	is it
	Santa, as you fly around with your sleigh and
	Rudolph and  the rest of your reindeer  set
	Not too much to ask for just a little peace
	for a little justice - in a dangerous world
	for a star in the sky to call the wise men
	and shepherds, oxen, asses and angels.

Details | Kim James Poem

Do Not Turn Out the Night

Ne Pas Éteindre La Nuit

Do not turn out the night
for night brings peace in healing.
Wait for the coming of the light
to wake a sense of morning’s feeling.

Do not turn out the night;
without the night can day exist?
And if I do not feel the coming of the light
how then can I the coming night resist?

Do not turn out the night;
we cannot see the white without the black
and though the wrong does not extinguish right
may I not know its presence by its lack?

Details | Kim James Poem

The Change

It is not that I see no future, she said,
but that I fear the future that I see.
A world where simple contact with another
is to be seen and understood as prelude
to Armageddon, the end of the world

They tell me I must stay away, she said,
from friends and family from life
No touching of the flesh,no salutation
but from afar,  no breathing the same air
lest we all become infected carriers of our doom.

They tell me I must change my life, she said.
Nothing can remain unchanged henceforth
The nightmare scenario of doomsday is now real
and I must now adapt or die in a new society
whose latest paradigm is to separate and divide 

They have closed the nation’s borders, she said,
around the globe we must all now fear the others
bearers of sad, bad tidings and the plague, 
the ones who are different because they are 
not our tribe, our clan, our family,not  us ourselves

They tell me, for my safety, I must fear, she said.
Fear contact, fear contagion, fear my friends 
Fear neighbours, fear children, fear you, fear me, 
Is it not deadly this fear? More deadly than its cause?
The world, our world, may never be the same 

Though we may die, 
and though it may 
lay sleeping for a while, 
this fear once now awakened 
will, I fear, never leave.
.

Kim Helen James 17/3/2020

Details | Kim James Poem

Too Soon To Sleep Again

A flower smiles
A tree shrugs off the golden bird.
Over the hill the red moon shines
And the blue sun is ashamed
To rise so late.

I seek to hold the nonsense
In my head and speak with
Tongues of liquid fire as
Time flows sideways back
From disaster to apocalypse.

And then I wake 
and all
Is as it was. 
Too soon to sleep again.

Kim Helen James
28/2/2020

Details | Kim James Poem

In Tinsel Time

In tinsel time the bells do chime. 
We deck the halls and shopping malls
with plastic bough and holly wreath. 
The conjured tricks that lie beneath 
the plastic magic make-believe 
pull cheap tradition from the empty sleeve
and, with the angel chorus on demand,
demand the payment of the damned 
by overdraft and plastic cards, 
with season's greetings and regards 
for Christmas Joy and Yuletide Cheer; 
the end of one more bloody year.

In tinsel time the bells do chime
the dance of money and the mime
of love's best giving soon forgot.
And in each cardboard palace, hot
inside each borrowed suit of red,
each Father Christmas pats the head
of every child, drags out the lie;
and so the holy days go by
and fall beneath the pounds and pence
that parents value more than sense.
The harlot traders rub their hands and cheer
the end of one more bloody year.

In tinsel time the bells do chime 
and all rejoice and with one voice
proclaim, disclaim, complain the lack 
of honesty in Santa's sack. 
The parties drag from pub to pub 
and end up at somebody's club 
and after, in the morning pain, 
the disenchanted mutter "not again" 
and stagger through another day 
but then, again, go out to play; 
Until, at last, the bells they cheer
that start another bloody year.

Kim James 
12/12/95

Details | Kim James Poem

Come Kiss Me, Love

Come kiss me, love, and make the time stand still;
seconds to hours and hours to years extend. 
Come, kiss me, love, and with your lips' soft thrill 
my heart will leap and all my passions send 
a song of love; a melody so pure 
that all the world will pause its frantic rush 
in wonder that a touch so soft and sure 
could bring the universe to such a hush. 
Come kiss me, love, and make my world so spin 
that all my mind, heart, soul and body dance 
at your command; my love your prize to win; 
a true God-given hope and second chance.
When all the world is still and night brings sleep,
come kiss me, love; come rest in slumber deep.

Details | Kim James Poem

Lifescape

See where I started,
in the garden of my childhood.
Fenced around with parents
hedged in with strict convention.

Walk with me.

The bare hills of ambition from my youth
lead upward, onward, overlooking
crowds and earthbound throngs.
Climb the eroding pathway to the top
whence with far-ranging envy see,
mocking,
the high peaks of distant mountains,
unattainable,
glitter their silvered summits.

Stand on these cliffs and wonder
as the seabirds plunge and soar
like hopes and aspirations
tempting disaster as fate's breakers
beat upon the rocks of past mistakes.

Walk on the clifftop, if you dare;
the tightrope of success;
never relaxing concentration,
risking the headlong plunge
from heaven to hell slowed only,
if you're lucky,
by the outstretched hand of friendship.

Now wander through these quiet woods
of contemplation,
restful and green with peaceful glades.
Soft birdsong filters shafts of sunlit
understanding,
bringing into wondering view
the undergrowth of hidden imaginings.

Sit for a while, for a short season's warmth
beside this running brook of happiness
and listen to its peaceful trills
contrapuntal to the murmured sounds
of slow, contented summer,
tranquil in a lover's arms beneath
the frantic beauty of the skylark's song.

Descend these nameless, slippery paths
that lead through the dark places
to the chasms,
to the lonely depths of black despair
where midnight terrors lurk
in deep, dank caves of restless sleep
and every monster's shadow looms
large and overbearing.

I offer you no final resting place,
no welcoming tavern for a lifetime's thirst,
no sheltered bungalow to care for
after work well done.
Only a cross-roads in a barren place
where a blind fingerpost
hints at unseen directions,
untravelled paths with unknown travellers
crossing.

Walk with me.

Kim James

26/5/95

Details | Kim James Poem

Riding a Rhinoceros

I would ride a rhinoceros for you
ride it to Timbuctoo
and bring you back
all the golden sand of the desert in a bottle

I would overcome an octopus for you
dive it to deepest Atlantis
gathering up
pearls, sapphires, coral and rubies in a shell

I would bridle the biggest eagle for you
fly it to the cheese-green moon
collecting
shooting stars and sunbeams in a fine feather basket

I would sing a silly song for you, or
write a pretty poem, a nonsensical novel,
a dictionary
of brand new words to describe the lexicon of you

Moving faster than Wonder Woman, I
would go around the world in seventy-nine days
saving a day just for you
(bringing it home, wrapped in spices of the orient)

I would - if you asked me to -
stay up all night for a year, repainting the stars;
leaving them in your room to dry,
just to light up your dreams with silver.

Kim James
7-Feb-2000

Details | Kim James Poem

Sonnet Iii

The first soft snows of winter falling now;
Clinically cold, the wind cuts like a knife.
The surgeon's scalpel deals a final blow
To the numb fabric of the summer's life
Whose yellow lingered in the autumn's leaves
And warmed my hopes and brightened my despair.
Threads of past winters brightly interweave
Bright music from the myths of youth time where
All things must end in joy. To cold white earth,
The crystal messengers from steel-grey sky
Assassin's tidings bring of the year's death.
The seed of hope must wait and must not die.
  The circle holds its hope within its round;
  In deepest Winter, Spring waits in the ground.

Kim Helen James
December 1996

Details | Kim James Poem

Flying To Manchester

"This is the best time of the day,"
The taxi man said,
"Before those buggers go to work.
Half an hour's time
You couldn't drive down here."
"I wouldn't want to."
I replied, looking up at the clear air,
Signatured with vapour trails,

And wishing Manchester
Were Singapore or Cape Town.

Kim Helen James
January 1997