Hannah Williams

How Do You Solve A Problem?

Inspired by “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?” — music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. After the Sound of Music, How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria? When I’m with him, I’m in love.Out of my mind and overthinkingAnd I never know exactly what to do.I’m trying to work…

My Closure Statement

WORDS: He loves me, and He thinks the world of me. He’s not brave enough to be vulnerable about how he feels. I cannot force him but I can choose to fix my eyes on the things that matter whilst he develops the courage, but I am not responsible for his growth and maturity, but…

I Didn’t Mean To Be

WORDS: I didn’t mean to be the girl that told the world all your weaknesses. I thought you were bold enough for them to know. And what I didn’t say in all this mess; is that you are perfect the way you are. I didn’t mean to be the girl that told the world you…

Christian Bad Boy

WORDS: I think you’re angel and a work of art but also a stranger tearing my world apart. I think you’re an angel and a work of art but also just a stranger who makes me laugh. I think you’re an angel and a work of art but also just a stranger needing courage to…

Sometimes He Thinks You Are

WORDS: Sometimes he thinks you are smile; warm, bright and vibrant but then it changes quickly so he thinks you’re inconsistent. Sometimes he thinks you’re your eyes; soft, inviting and gentle but then it cuts him deep every time you feel he does something wrong. So maybe you’re not. Sometimes he thinks you are laugh:…

breaking the yoke (vision)

WORDS: I saw two sheep. The male had a yoke broken on its neck. The female came and rubbed her head on the male sheep and runs off. The male shakes his head to rattle off the yoke. He struggles, he shakes and eventually breaks free. He bolts off after the female sheep where she…

Your Mother Is The Wind

WORDS: Distance and time, I find myself on an island. And each time I drift towards you. I see myself drown in my fears. Your mother is the wind, she rushes in to protect you. Sometimes like a hurricane, but she only needs to be a gentle breeze. Because I’m only a sunshine but not…

Questions I Want To Ask Your Mother

WORDS: What did she pray when she had you? How did she hold you in her heart? When she held you what did she feel? What does she see when she looks into your eyes? Why does she laugh at us when we get shy? What does it remind her of? These were some of…

I Think I’m Ready To Move On

WORDS: Have you ever crafted a fairytale so perfect it became a dream and the lusts of the heart tells you all is not as it seems. Well, I found myself wanderlust once upon a time in a place called Love. It was cruel, cold and full of lies. It was a lust called love…

All The Things I Want To Know About You / Sand Dunes

WORDS: Baby I imagine you to be a sand dune. Heaps of you; in each speck of sand. I can see the questions; all the things I want to know about you. Who was the first girl that made you smile? Can you teach me what she said or did? Who was the first girl…

Now I’m Embarrassed

WORDS: Baby, this is embarrassing; this is vulnerable I’m weak in the eyes when I see you so I quickly look away. Boy my shoulders tense, my hands clam up, my heart skips a beat then thunders a bit. I feel loved. I feel thrill. I feel fear. I’m embarrassed and common sense has left…

I Just Wanted To Be Your Peace

WORDS: I have the superpower to annoy you, cut you with my words, hurt you with my eyes, flow with your anger, mould my moods to hold you guilty, disrespect you with my laughs, bend in defiance and rebel with my shoulders and hold my head high. But I want you to know that I…

Another Love Poem

WORDS: Boy meets girl; boy likes girl; boy falls in love. I find my footprints in the sand and I see the silhouette of your steps. You chase. I run. You chase. I stop. The sea washes to the shore. Boy meets girl; boy likes girl; boy proposes. She sees the sunrise and the sunset…

Sometimes I Think You Are…

WORDS: Sometimes I think you are your laugh; deep, hearty and wholesome.then I found out that same mouth has been calling me obsessed; not defending me in rumours so I think you are not. Sometimes I think you are your heart; soft, gentle, sensitivethen I found out it was beating for someone else; not me…

How A Man Holds His Wife

WORDS: I want you to hold me, and I melt in your hands; and when you hold me it will be a call, a siren, a song. That in your arms, I’m everything and more, as two becomes one. I’m longing for you to hold me, and I’ll never see it as weakness, instead a…

A Drop In The Ocean

WORDS: Sitting here in an ash heap of guilt,I earned truing to awaken love. I am an ocean upheaving,and you, a cloud of rain. I thought your response will brighten my daybut we seem to mirror away from each other. My questions are: what does he now think of me?Now that a drop in the…

The Love I Don’t Want

WORDS: Lover boy, I don’t want a love that sounds like angry chords; and I know you know exactly what that means. It’s a love where you are burdened; so you strum the wrong tune because your finger feel clumsy; unable to find me exactly where you want so you make mistakes. Yet somehow we’ve…

The Wait

WORDS: I’m so overwhelmed with love that sometimes I become an ash heap built on my desires and lusts. My love is wholesome and whole; sometimes quiet, sometimes brave and sometimes bold. I wear the loop of my heart on my left finger, my desire for purity. My happy ever after where this daughter is…

September 21, 2025

i can see myself in your mess (from the outrun movie)

(from the outrun movie) WORDS:Although I’m not an alcoholic and my father is not bi-polar, I sometimes play with the winds in my hands and let the tree move as if I was an ochestra letting the music sway. Although I’m not white and my hair isn’t blue, I hope to fall in love with…

September 21, 2025

a poem about nothing

WORDS:Everything woke up today; pulling and tugging Everything woke up today; pulling and tugging. At my heart strings; buoyant to everything in a heart floating about something. Somethings become sometimes,some dreams becomes goodbyes,but I’m holding onto everything,and don’t want to say goodbye tosome things that have become everything that I’d wishand wouldn’t want to make…

voyageur

WORDS: we wade by the moonlit sky;as it becomes adept in hidingthe cerulean view.as the old horizon,span itself over the galaxythunder whisperslightening speaksand age travelsfaster than the speed of light.we ask it to wade;so we can holdit effervescence oflight, life and laughter.each year our songwaxes brighterand we hang agelike stars in the galaxyand billions of…

vine on the wall

WORDS: burn the twigs with frankincense, and each year the vine waxes stronger. weaving itself across the wall like a neck adorned with lavalieres. ivy ebbs and flows. fauna flaunts itself;each year swelling, expanding, trespassing across neighbours borders boundaries appropriated.cut. snip. burn. across the walls of the mind,they watched the roots seek vengeance.do…

when you painted my dreams as dark

WORDS: who would have thought it to be me?my versions of the sunset:in my summer dress, leaves the darkness upset.because i’m not bringing it to my new dawnit won’t rise with me either:in the morning sun. i spent seven days mourning my mind.then I made myself hibiscus tea, i drowned and abated the symptoms of…

waves and cycles

WORD:waves are nothing butthreads of water pulling back and forth like frayed fabrics.the inking on the notes confesses that silver clouds with silver liningshas speck of silver molecules in its crashing. it clangs like a cymbal and subdues,only to arise again and repeat. spiralling into nature’s spontaneity.we measure tsunami in man-made timescales. and when hems…

we, the wildflower women

WORDS:she was a valiant seed;but in those days;father knew seedswere nonentities.so, he couldn’t affordto nurture a kernelknown for fragility.he held the belief thatseeds bare seedswho then bore seeds.and in due coursehis fragile seedwill follow suit. she was a blossoming budbut in those daysmother knew seedswere useful.not too complacentto nurture this kernel seedswho become so invaluableand…

the waning sun

WORDS: the yellow sun spans itself into a waning crescent/ and we are amused by its curvature/if it could lower itself down to us/ we would extract all that we could/compress its hydrogen for more metals/ find more uses for its helium / and coerce carbon to commit to our customs/ whatsoever is left of…

we shall draw our breath

WORDS: When the dawn drew;the dark sits in its nothingness.We cannot breathe. With the sky gazing favourably;In its favour it stretches itself ;and the day becomes longer.We cannot breathe. Some question the sunshine;about its luminosity.Former days recall light beatinginto a bedazzling darkness.We cannot breathe. An incandescent void so illustrious.We’ve been saturated and soaked;on this narrow…

wade

i. When time asks the day; what have you made of it?inhale for the seconds, minutes, hours, dayssubtract the lost seasons and add the years.disregarding the tick of the clock.Wallow in words of silence then;build chaos in chronological order. ii. When syllables grew lethal; did you think you could shawl words of titanium?Seek warnings of…

the retraction of regret

WORDS: etching regret / on the tablet of the skin / absorb the white chalk / permeable surfaces can take no more / sullen guilt smudges / the pleading skin demands exfoliation with coarse salt / infuse lavender oil/ take the hands/ grind the mortar / rotate the pestle/ the words sinking in the bowl…

the crossing

WORDS: Cross the borders of the sun;and let its rays grow wildflowers Cross the border of the sea;and on its waves, we walk. Cross the borders of growth;and we uproot ruthless seeds. Cross the borders of decay;and in the rot, we deracinate. Cross the border of age;and do not despise its youth. Cross the borders…

sunset

WORDS: I stood under the evening sun,thinking of things yet to come:and everything we ever hadfloated away with the lily pad. that’s when the rain made its trailand pain shoots in form of hail.and if you ever cherish me,become something more than I hold you to be. and we breathed the air again.and its vapour…

sunken place

WORDS: in the briny deep, a legion of horses they rode. and waves were their abode. in some distance land; histories ago, by the horizon of their growth; the platoons uprooted ruthless seeds. in the land of the decay, plagues of rot arrived, the multitude deracinate. in the exodus, the gathering didn’t concede to age.…

strands of gold

WORDS: Rumpelstiltskin weft the hairand spun it into a commodity.then laced a curse in the strand;but fibre became adamant,it would turn into a blessing. when he was done weaving; he lacedand when he was done lacing; he weaved.his nimble hands lack courage;and his conscience lacked all things.but character was adamanthe would be pious one day.just…

sad (sestina)

WORDS: her mouth form into weak curvatures.today she laughs as sedated smiling storm.beneath the ridge lies the docility,of her undulated tongue and its symptoms.nocuous questions shall determine her fateas she searches for unblemished answers. her beautiful mind confines its answersand tells her to study the tables curvature.she listens attentively to her symptoms and hears two forces…

rainforest

WORDS: listen closely at the equipoise where new immerses the old, like curses softening into blessings as a scented candle infusing away the past and the prayers becoming flames. the preacher man asks you to take for the year how much your faith carries. you decipher the load and you take proclamations of what the…

probe

WORDS: we probe the garden to recount our childhoodand retell our adventures that it once absorbed. tell us about our imagination chasing us barefootand the borders we crossed with ingenuity, confiscate our memories of this wilting world;and return reminders of the pure planets of the past.caution us of the callous cosmos that now coexist. we…

parrallels

WORDS: affliction is a foreign exchange market.it bids iniquities and asks to sell the painremembering the rulesbid low, sell high.finding the point of arbitrage.inefficiencies fade in the exchangethe smiles are commodities hedged with tears.the laughter are equities diversified with lament.the joy is a bond contractually agreedon a date that sorrow set its yield.the ethos echoesand…

oxymoron

WORDS: tonight, this hard shell will break soft.with its small pieces voyaging into big places.its lost ways are found in the earthed soilsno singing birds to write its wordsthey layer nests with undressed leavesapologising to the twig stating its reasons.when the dawn darkens in the horizonthe skyline looks down on the soilshades become shadows in…

orchid

WORDS: some lost orchids search for home.that’s why they are ever reaching.absorbent lies caress impermeable truths.when they get caught is how they find their colours.layers of lushness create an emergent canopy,that blocks most light from reaching below.they create buds more than their destroying branches;they hold the apologue to be; self-watering, sufficient and still.they are becoming…

origins

WORDS: why did you let them call you names that are not yours? did you see them pour the essence of its etymology into a beaker? they add the titrant of syllables and their mispronunciation in volumes of concentration. yet at this neutralisation, you become envious of the beaker. it falls and breaks. why did…

one more sad song

WORDS: the flute was played; and we danced alongwe sang the sun one more sad song.this is the last time we’ll show our woundand let our scars play the drone untuned.tears will no longer spate our faceand its melancholy will not embracethis is the last time despondence humsto ask us to beat our saddened drums.…

on losing thyself

WORDS:out by the shoreshe sung with the wavesand in the sun,the night escapes.she breathes, and breath againa vapour of a songcondensed into the brave and freewill you dare to remember she.the melody she gavethey took the notes.and reduced her wisdominto stillness quotesshe sang as the tune.hummed and entunedanother song will have to dowhen we danced…

my taste for rain has changed

WORDS:my taste for rain has changedi no longer cry storms.my taste for thunder begun,when my feet vowed to return.my taste for rain on arid soil,the dawn begunand with the weather i was overi vowed my storm will return. under the faint sky,my taste for rain evolved.grew into a wildfire of monsoonsi returned with hailstones under…

metamorphosis

WORDS: a day cradles the sun; and i hold its beams.another way to hold the colours of my dream. call out the warmth, hold it close and tight.then i may find the sun in the middle of its plight. i am a woman with yellow in my huesthough i began to settle with the darkness…

mother

WORDS: Our mother is a radiant Sunflower;too proud to admit her waning. Our mother is a vibrant orchid;too secretive about her fading petals. Our mother is a bold bamboo;too strong to show breaking boughs. Our mother is a yellow hibiscus; too effervescent to return her radiance. Our daughters are black Roses;too bothered with blooming. Our daughter…

map

WORDS: a map engraved on soles of the feet,landscapes etched on the mind.inklings across ankles becomes nodesof wanderlust places which now erode. neither monsoon but harmattanneither wildfire but a flood.both submerge her skinbut we call it an ‘Act of God’. purple hibiscus and sugar cane stalksgrew on acres of radiant landsbut will diasporas feed our…

love’s fear

WORDS: after you shut the light outcry with the sun and lament at the moonlove is breaking and breath-takinglet us take back our disrespectwe will not watch the brokenness in our reverencethese flailing hearts now beat slow realising that bliss casts itself over our shadows.when the three words blow over our coffinswe died making something…

lies the salient sycamore tree

WORDS: neither near nor far from theelies the salient sycamore treeto its right desire asks destinyto speak on faith enmity. neither near nor far from theelies the salient sycamore treeto its left life ask deaththe essence of the final breath neither near nor far from theelies the salient sycamore treein the middle pleasure asks painwhich…

lessons

WORDS: a burial in the carcases of the heart;doesn’t always mean its broken.it sometimes contains:pain, secrets, treasures.morgue and morbid goodbyes,are weft in tears or weaved in courageand threw at graves.twine pain and throw it over the horizon.life is bleak.so everything found- keep.sometimes we weave confidence in our palms.and embroidery smiles on our faces.some days, laughter…

language

WORDS: the indigenous mouth is colonised by a new speech,do not ask oceans to cross borders for old words.at the periphery, language is under siege.her shudders roar like a legion of hummingbirds. in agony her pain reverbs into a stolen screechwatch it weep in its etymology it shares one-thirdof reading, writing and speaking to be…

lamentations

Under the scarlet sky silence probed sadness for seven despondent days. Self-esteem is a lining that finds itself breaking and repairing itself again. Two entities cramp till they bleed hope or fear and cry in pain about crimson nightmares. Aches and tenderness massage the nodes till it swells upheaving like a wave then ask…

ivory song

WORDS: the lurid sun hauled the dawn across the sere plainsand the silent soil spins its dust to the other side.with the watering hole minding its business for once.a forewarning of what is and yet to come,under the mid-summer dream in the haze of the Serengeti. ancient melodies recite with tearsbringing the gusts of the…

if i had words like a poet

WORDS: I want to write aboutthe incandescent skies;the nebulous horizons;the midsummer mists;then get lost in the skies that words;commanded to remain blue. I want to write aboutadapting the ums in my speech,metamorphosing songsmerging metaphors to become melodies I want to write aboutyou, mine, and thee.wanderlust with subjects:probe predicates:meet with metaphors. I want to write about…

i was born

i was born by a well, and they drew me like Rachel, and Jacob waded for fourteen years. and in my lineage, we watched trees till they became branches with boughs of almonds and grew into something more than leaves. i was born by a lake, and they took me like Moses across the rivers…

i am not geographies dream

a. temporal spaces labelled by place and space; i expel myself from without. convergent meets divergent and terrain meets new troughs; ambivalent to physicality; ordinance surveys point to keys and nodes is a just a reflection of my physical geographies. i haven’t formed yet- a mountain, valley, lake, and brook; sand dunes and wildfires; storms…

homecoming

as the warmth of yellow basked in the summer breeze, i parch and thirsted for new beginnings. father, when thy kingdom comes and your will begins, let origins be the find i seek. mother, when thy kingdom comes and your will complete, let etymology be the song i sing. father, when thy kingdom comes and…

healing

A bone crumbles delicately into a sand dune,with nimble flesh and sinews of delicate grains.Memories of a once picturesque sandcastle,now has trodden silver seashells dancing in its veins. In the crumbling, memories recount,how each speck becomes residues.recurring pain lullabies in the memoriesdisguising the hunger for sleep as night-time blues. Yet the world opens an ailing…

golden years

i. a thousand doves search for an olive leaf.and piece by piece, they brought the tree.but all we saw was sticks and twigs.they kept adding despite our unbelief. ii. a hundred grains searched for wholesome landand years of famine spread and grewbut all we saw was the need for food.the grains had tenacity for other…