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Best Poems Written by Ka Kimmel

Below are the all-time best Ka Kimmel poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

Details | Ka Kimmel Poem

To Describe a House

To describe a house one lives in
	
is to talk of wood, blistered
by the sun, cracked into years
Resolute and aged
in the strength of its frame
firm upon the earth
in its history of being a house

Details | Ka Kimmel Poem

Past Tense

Past Tense

The pain and this grief is held close
	to my chest is, all that is left is
		becomes past tense.

Memory now vanishing, this work
	of remembering is love
		without vibrancy, vitality or motion.

No aroma of the moment is more
	smelling than thinking is.
		All that is left is

Clenching a shadow not
	caressing her flesh, is
		all that is left is;

Another kind of slow death is
	disappearing until love is
		just another word again.

Details | Ka Kimmel Poem

Challenge of Weather

First the sky will grow violent sudden clouds
and rain for so many days on end,
the ground swells and air becomes sodden tissue
and birds will not leave their shelter
or fly in the storm;
small animals seek higher ground
and wait for the rain to cease.
Streams will shudder to rivers without a fixed course
and cause the rivers to outrun their banks;
oceans pounding the shores will change
the continent's shape forever.
Trees and the land must rock
in the wind bending low
letting their stiffness relax,
losing a leaf or a stone;
some early petals must fall and be missed
by the inventory of summer bees.
	And when all this torrent of Spring
has come and gone the clouds will recede
and birds once more will be flying and petals
better seen than before.  When the trees
have outlived the storm and surviving
becomes the challenge of weather,
I will think of you then
for lovers are better survivors.

Details | Ka Kimmel Poem

Moments

In the long run
our days together
are numbered.
So loving becomes
by our care
a cure we take together
for all past cruelties
which have hurt us
and made us fear,
knowing the end 
will suit us after all.

Details | Ka Kimmel Poem

Yellow

I set the blue balls
	on the
green table
	and make
yellow

Nothing is like
yellow
	nor these
gestures
	or maple
leaves falling
	in
October’s forest
	nor
curried rice
	the lack of
courage or
	ancient
paper rolled &
brittle

Yellow is yellow

Fallen leaves
	died
somewhere in
September
	curry is
hot as white rice
is small
	as courage
is hard to find by
itself
	old paper
is old by the same
gesture

Yellow is not
mustard
	(jaundice
sunlight or book
covers)

Yellow surrounds
& associate
	in disguise
	with other
colors
 

	and is 
never gold lime
	lemon
banana #2 pencil
	blue balls
green table or
gestures

Yellow is yellow
	that’s
enough

Details | Ka Kimmel Poem

No Other Poetry

I care more for you now
than writing poetry,
reading the history of the world
doesn’t interest me.

Watching the sun set over
half-deserted city lanes or waves
carrying out to sea;
watching the moon rise
does not excite me now.  Only
a thought of you rising in my mind
takes my attention away.

You have shaken the order of my world
with all its ponderous weight
upon me
and scattered the stars
that guide me
and shine the only light.

Through you I hear sweet comfort,
the whispering flesh of lips,
warm breath, a kiss;
through you I hear the pause
and listen to the silent content
of words not spoken
in the wind.

Through you all life is better,
by you needs
no other poetry.

Details | Ka Kimmel Poem

Mine and Not Mine

In the world that is made
there’s poetry and me;
in the world there’s everything,
and everything is mine and not mine.

I am everything and again
only the one responsible
for everything-

willing to move in an orbit
other than mine
yet in the not mine
no movement is unmade.

As in everything there’s never rest-
up close microscopics shimmer
while distant things repose
seeming still and separate
as all still and separate things.

Yet there is movement
and in movement cohesion
repairs the unity
as all still and separate things
become the world again.

Everything happens in the world
happens here at last,
and in the world that is made
there is poetry and me.

In the world there is everything
and everything is mine
and not mine.

Details | Ka Kimmel Poem

Falling

Falling

An apple falls to the ground.
Have you ever seen an apple
falling through the leaves
to the ground?
Not a sound is heard
but a bird flies away.

Have you ever heard someone say
'easy as falling out of a tree'
or saw lovers walking
under a tree in a garden
where apples roll then rest
in the grass?

Have you ever supposed how they got there?
Have you ever guessed?
What I mean is,
have you ever seen an apple falling?
Falling is easy as apples.
If you look you'll know what I mean.

An apple falling from a tree
is a thing to be seen, to be looked for.
Every tree should have its witness,
every eye an apple falling to the ground.
Not a sound is heard
but a bird flies away.

Details | Ka Kimmel Poem

Adagio In One Time

Adagio in One Time

From the smooth plastered wall behind her,
Albinoni’s adagio drummed faintly like a heartbeat.
‘Who are you’, when startled awake by the touch of his hand,
were the first words she spoke.

A stained and tattered children’s toy, a rabbit lay
in the folds of her blanket rising with each shallow breath
lifted by her stomach.  Her eyes strained to focus,

eye lids closed then rose three-quarters up;
pallid flesh of her cheeks tremored when she tried to speak;
her lips and tongue worked independently from
words she wanted to say; only her eyes flickered,
but the words never came.

‘It’s okay, sweetheart, it’s okay’ he heard his voice say
over and over and over. He held her left hand in his,
cool and motionless like a broken twig,
a branch from a barren tree caressed by morning dew.

He balmed her lips with a Vaseline stick and offered liquid through a straw.
She heard him say the red-headed hummingbird, 
hadn’t gone away for the winter yet.

Pleased, her green eyes opened wide, fluttered and closed
for a moment, then said ‘I’m tired’. ‘I’ll go and let you rest’, he said,
‘enjoy the morphine dripping through the needle in your wrist’.
He said that three, four, six more times and still found
something else to say, anything just to stay around.

He kissed her forehead and kissed her cheek, twisted and slowly kissed her lips.
She looked at him with frustration in her green eyes pierced by confusion; 
‘I love you, I don’t want to leave you’ he heard
what her speech couldn’t say.

‘It’ll be okay’, he said, ‘everything will be okay’. These were the last words
he had to say except, ‘I’ll see you later’.

……but he didn’t.

Details | Ka Kimmel Poem

A Special Treatment

Yes.  You are still alive.
Delight.  The special treatment
discontent supplies.
Watching is enough,
breathing just that,
keeping you alive.
Listening.  What sound
does for hearing, blinking
does for sight:
the parts still work,
the heart is full of blood,
thinking is indiscriminate,
presence is there 
where you sit.
Delight in the skin,
the system of tissue still holds,
the structure of bone is strong,
the temperature's right.
Nowhere is better than now.
Here there is only a pause, 
a place to take stock;
not just to look or look back
but see, not listen but hear,
not challenge but be.
Delight.  A special treatment.