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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

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

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

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

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

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

Details | Kim James Poem

The Sun Shines Warm On Lonely Streets

The sun shines warm on lonely streets 
above a pale blue water-colour sky.
Clear water sings across the weir 
and in the clear air, birds still fly.
Across the river in the school
no children play nor shout nor cry
but nature greens her trees and blooms
her flowers without a thought that we should spy 
a life that, thus through seasons all continuing, 
cares not if we deserve to live or die.

Kim Helen James
19/3/2020

Details | Kim James Poem

What Else Is There To Say

I am sick of a world where people say that they care
And then build up their walls and pull down the tents
Of the poor and the weak whose only intent is
Survival and those whose only hope is
Our common humanity from our common creation
Though we change the names and the colour of faces
And define our homes as different places
We are not different races - our DNA traces
Our common humanity and our common relations.
And the shame of our common history shows
That the death camps of Auschwitz and
Genocide in Rwanda and the plight of Rohingas that flee
From the soldiers, and the flight of the Christians
From IS in Iraq or the fight of First Nations just to be
Free, recognised and valued as people -that these
Are our history too and the death of a Kurd
Or a transgender sister or the rape of a child
Or abuse of all types at all times in all places
These are just as wild and just as plain wrong
An offence to the divinity of our common humanity.
What else is there to say.

Kim Helen James
27/1/2018