New Poetry

New poems may now be viewed at The Poetry of William Hammett.

When the World Goes Digital

You shall be in high definition, I suspect,
your beauty a Tibetan crystal,
clear and serene,
and only a thousand chanting monks
will have the saffron power
to make your third eye resonate.

Still, I hope you shall forgive me, love,
for what I, a farmer in some forgotten field, must do.
When the sun finds facets on your angled face,
I shall kiss the pixels of your eyes and cheeks
before stepping back in time
to a checkered shirt and denim jeans,
my proper time and place.

Some Other Day

There is always some other day
when the dream resting at the apex of our thoughts
finally comes to pass,
when the crippled leg grows straight,
when the woman at our subway stop
scribbles her number on a napkin
and says “yes” to the imagined date.

There is always a thick blanket of snow
after hellish summer heat
has withered longstanding desires,
its white purity unfurled like a principality’s wing.
There is always a single leaf in spring,
frail and fresh and green,
after winter has torn flesh from bone
with fingers made of sleet.

There is always some other day,
a circadian square on the calendar page
where by inches or degrees
slim hope no longer evades our reach:
the blind man once again sees.
But even if these dreams recede
and a lottery ticket doesn’t pay,
do not drive my crippled mind
from the hope of some other day.

Painting of Job: Einar Hakonarson, Creative Commons 3.0

Illusion

The world in its finery,
a kingdom of meadows
for the flowers of Solomon—

mere illusion for the wider field
where eternity tills the soil
and soul wraps its roots around God.

Black Satin Dress

Sorry for so few posts lately. Mea culpa. So in case anyone is still reading ... -:)

Black Satin Dress

Cosmic background radiation
crackles from the phonograph
as you dance

in a long satin dress, black,
holding scotch neat,
inviting me with your hips

to feel the irresistible pull
of dark matter
collapsing into a kiss.

A diamond needle spirals
inward to the final groove.
The only sound is a hiss.

Photo: Public Domain

One Single Impression: Color

red hair on shoulders
the sun speaks copper accents
I study abroad

Hot Green Apocalypse

The road is serpentine,
ten thousand years old
and disappearing into the thicket
of ultimate repose.

It is a bad omen.
Stone and fire
have glinted machinery
from the void,

steam and atoms
spiraling into the hands
of a smith
girding the planet in steel.

The beast has consumed
ribbons of rust,
lapping clouds
of red miasma.

The holy man and poet
die in their caves
while the earth purges itself
in hot green apocalypse.

Sounding

First, a little housekeeping. Both Shauna and Bernita are running PAYING IT FORWARD contests at Shauna Roberts' For Love of Words and An Innocent A-Blog respectively. (Charles, I missed yours because I did my taxes at the last minute--mea culpa.)

The following poem was one of my first posts when I started blogging last November. I'm bringing it back now that the blog is up and running, so to speak, and because today is going to be very busy. And oldie and, hopefully, a goody.

Outside, the moon floats through a leafless tree,
riding peaceably the road well taken
through Orion with his boots in the snow.
A mongrel underneath the tree
paws the ground at carp in the stream,
settles composedly in a mongrel’s dream.
Within, the woman turns, unawakened,
leaving the trace of a dream in a sigh,
and draws the patchwork tighter over shoulders and hips
weighted in the furnace hiss that serves as lullaby.
There is no reading to be done,
no study of poets, of Coleridge
contemplating frost at midnight.
Rather, the plumb for stillness wrapped in ice,
the maple sprig glazed by the stream,
is the night itself, dark and frozen,
hanging from the silver throne of Betelgeuse
by a rarefied thread that issues
the sounding of a sleeping world:
life, like the north gate,
is held fast in winter’s skin,
and yet there is the fire of a cold star,
sap-filled roots, a moon riding the sky.
There is a pulse in the stream, somewhere.
There is the trace of a dream in a sigh.

(First published in American Poets & Poetry, 1999)

picture: copyright, William Hammett, 2007.

Afternoon Prayer

I toss a handful of words on the meadow
while pondering seeds and the hidden nature of things.

A stone rolls away from the tomb
as I resume sweeping the porch.

The Dead Are Forever Writing Letters

The dead are forever writing letters,
their bodies mulching into leaves.

Maple parchment tells me a young bride
was killed by the undertaker’s son.

Snow and dirt and time
archive the words we choose in death.

Free verse or rhyme,
we are all published in the end.

Cycles

naked
at last I stand on the savannah

the sun carries away
the final day

the flat acacia supports twilight

all others have gone
into the long night
of a thousand years

over at last
the millennia

crickets smooth the grass
with song

the last word
or the first

I raise my arms
to become
the mountain in some new creation

Eve steps lightly from behind

this time she will not charm
or listen to the twisted vine

Clowns

[For latest prompt at One Single Impression]

They are the guardians of color,
the avatars of belly flop
and gargantuan guffaw.

With rainbow frizz
above flat feet slapping laughs,
they embrace the innocence of all mistakes

as they pratfall into dreams,
greasepaint smiling like a loon
or a drunken Christmas aunt.

Only after years have made mockery of play
do we turn away from the bulbous nose,
cringing from the funhouse echo of facade.

Pic: public domain

Tracks

Rusted railroad tracks
buckle beneath the water tower.

The hard yellow sun
pulls dandelions from a rotting grade.

Breath is shallow, short,
arteries twisted away from ties that bind.

I stutter-step through gravel,
recalling your journey away from the heart.

Eternity in the Key of C

I tap the yellowed piano key with a bony index finger,
a C that stirs the marble-top bureau,

family pictures, wine glasses in the oak cabinet.
A French tapestry captures the one-note melody,

an orphan tone already dying.
I examine the faded oriental rug,

a thousand silent notes woven into fractals,
indigo snowflakes from an opium dream.

I hit the C again, the wire an old man’s vocal cord.
It is a feeble “yes” in a quiet room,

a museum where even the sunrise has been archived.
I glance at my body in the armchair

by the open window, summer breeze blowing
a white lace shroud over my face.

A heart attack, I think.
Yes.

There is a polite knock at the door.
Floorboards creak as I shuffle through the parlor.

Eternity, waiting on the porch,
has given me time enough to say goodbye.

After Reading Haiku

I sit in the sunroom,
looking at the yard I have given back to nature.
It is time for wildflowers and weeds
to grow tangled and tall
in the orgiastic bolt that is spring.

But there are words—

old pages yellow
the story of small kisses
roads in deep green woods—

that I cannot shave from my tongue
with razored thought grown dull.
They grow reckless, wild,
like ivy that will stitch the trellis
until it falls over the windowsill,
circling my bed on a night
when I dream of love.

I must bolt from middle age
without manicure, without edging,
a sprint to the last breath
that will see disorder weave foolishness
and disregard into ruts of routine.
The papers on my desk must not be left too neat.
My clothes must be found on the floor,
shoes tossed in the hallway
in a manner that will puzzle progeny.

Beyond the sunroom,
blades of grass are hatching conspiracy.
The ox-eyed daisy has poached the loam
where roses and lilies held sway.
Decades hence,
people will say my final years
were roads in deep green woods.

Picture: public domain

Day and Night

The silver rings pass through each other,
the magician pulling them east and west
with a double hitch of his hands
to show they are locked fast, like lovers.

And then they are divorced,
circles no longer sharing the quotidian mystery
of day and night sliding into each other
as they trace infinity along the equator.

The magician returns home
after the sun has fallen over the rim.
He says nothing to his wife as they eat
on opposite sides of the round kitchen table.

Picture: Public Domain

Scarecrows at Sunset

Bare fingers of trees are splayed
against a crimson and purple sunset.

Scarecrows in flannel shirts fall sideways by degrees
as an evening chill rolls across fallow fields,

hope nothing more than a straw dream
of next year’s seed.

Button-eyed heads loll in the breeze,
empty sleeves flailing to wave off winter.

The growing season has rolled away
on an axis of black hearts, black eyes

eclipsing salvation and sun
on an updraft from a distant sea.

Fat devils sleep in the rookery
while scarecrows hang on crosses

before commending their spirits
to a burial in unforgiving snow.

Picture: public domain

The Essence of a Poem

It should be a woman
opening her eyes
after long hours of sleep,

the silhouette of a taut muscle
after it has hammered
a threepenny nail into yellow pine.

It should be the sound
of rain rushing through a gutter spout
to fertilize the ground with sky,

the music heard by a deaf girl
at her first symphony
as half notes fall from the staff.

Picture: Public Domain

Once More by the Lake

[A tanka sequence first published in 1999 in Lynx, a journal of Japanese verse forms.]

shades of green
a twig tells of your step
behind me
this sound once more by the lake
and your petals unfolding

a whirl of skirt
follows your proposition
through the screen door
scented spring twilight
rolls down the nape of your neck

knowledge of change
fish break the silver surface
with liquid desire
sparrows call as stars rise
through quietly tossed hair

moonlight on water
a blossom floats on the white breast
to become a nipple
my head rests in your lap
crickets speak of this moment

a single kiss
lips have no words
for their mating
ripe love under stars
speaks only in tongues

two branches
the silent lake uncaring
if they are tangled
wet glory of spring
that water cannot hide nakedness

(Picture: public domain)

Bolts of Silk: A Great Poetry Blog

I recently discovered Juliet M. Wilson's Bolts of Silk, a site devoted to collecting poetry from many different poets on one blog. In a bit a shameless self-promotion, I am honored to announce that Juliet has featured my poem, An Abundance of Tides, on her blog. Two more poems by moi will be featured on Bolts of Silk in the months ahead. Juliet herself is a very accomplished poet, whose work may be seen at Crafty Green Poet.