The Poetry of William Hammett

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Wednesday, March 12, 2025

Dark Lady

A kiss
and a bottle of wine
are paired for love
that is wetter.

A kiss when your lips

are already dripping

with juice from the vineyard

is even better.

Here.

Take.

You have been kissed

with a vintage growing

under the lusty Italian sun

where the grapes

only get redder.

Here.

Take.

With my pen

dipped in sweet purple ink,

I send you this letter.

~William Hammett

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Wednesday, March 5, 2025

You and I

You are the breath and the breeze.
I am the tree you speak to.

You are silver streams of rain.

I am dark soil, waiting,

the seed that opens to hear the new tale told.

You are mystical energy.

I am the dreamcatcher who interprets

your vision, your words, your sight.

You are sunlight streaming through space.

I am a world waiting to live and catch fire.

~William Hammett

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Wednesday, February 26, 2025

Herons Visit Mary Oliver

Herons, ducks, and geese
rise in morning splendor
from a gold and violet dawn,
the sun giving them due notice
to migrate to the next best place
they are unaware of.

They will follow

the poetry of sky,

already sensing the pen

or pencil on the pad.

Wingtips dip unpolished silver water,

ascend to the great flapping and waving

of flight known only to an author

not in visible sight.

But oh, in time, in time.

In time

they land on her shoulders, knees,

on her hands and arms

and in her poems,

where they become

ink, cursive and swooping,

dipping on the off-white page

to describe the feathered meaning

of fowl.

They speak of sedge and reeds

and mud and the ether

that binds it all together as one.

The still words are moving,

the meaning set and yet undone

with the flapping of a page.

I wish I could live,

write, and see as one of these,

the little ones who form

a kingdom in search of a scribe

with words that may

or may not rhyme

depending on what she sees

at any particular time.

~William Hammett

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Monday, February 17, 2025

Bodhisattva

I am the gentleman in the black tuxedo,
on his arm the model with alabaster skin.
I am the Rock of Gibraltar risen from the sea
to escort the twisting form of femininity.
I am the woman in the white evening gown
wearing diamonds enough to rival midnight stars.
I am the matrix of Eve and carnal desire.
I am the Logos, the Second Coming,
and if you tell me that I am mad,
off the rails or something worse,
I will say, “Why didn’t you notice earlier?”
The stable at Bethlehem is just down the street
from my house and from yours.
We are all shapeshifting swiveling hips,
the man with the handsome chiseled jaw,
all preachers from Galilee, apprentices
holding a hammer, a plane, and a saw.
We are all incarnations of the divine.
You may not have remembered until now,
but you once sat under the bodhi tree,
once you awakened from a dream.
There was a time when you rose to the occasion
and turned water into wine.

~William Hammett

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Tuesday, February 11, 2025

Not Very Long Ago

I don’t know who God is,
but you will do, my dearest,
for when our breath was joined
in a kiss long or short,
there was spirit, the knowing
beyond all knowing,
the fire that illuminates desire,
the stream that cools the lips,
the bird speaking in tongues
while perched on the evening wire.
Your short dark hair was soft,
as was your voice, your life,
your gentle way of holding me
with your bedroom eyes.
A cloud sailed over my head
not very long ago
when the day was almost lost,
but I remembered you,
not for the first time,
and the moment was saved.

~William Hammett

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Tuesday, February 4, 2025

The Blessing of Pablo Neruda

For the sake of argument,
let us agree that the chance encounter
was at a quaint café on a narrow street
where I sipped coffee and you drank wine.

Despite this side-by-side jitterbug and waltz,

we decided that Proust was entirely too heavy

to carry around in a rucksack or the brain.

For the sake of argument, we strolled the park

with a bottle of wine and a baguette,

staring at the lake and catching imaginary fish,

though you pulled in a black rubber boot,

claiming that you must paint it in your loft.

Found art is the best, you said.

There, with the blessing of Neruda,

I admired your free-flowing fountain,

the landscape of your valleys and mountains,

your flat stomach and rolling breasts,

the slope of your thighs and shoulders.

But let us dismiss this rhetorical argument,

for I see a story in your eyes.

Let us begin with chapter one, page one,

a story so long that it will be carried for decades

without burden or the lost time of Swann.

You are my found art, a prose poem

that ends with our sleeping in each other’s arms,

our hair gray, our dreams of coffee

and wine and baguettes in the park.

Now to begin: Once upon a time.

~William Hammett

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Tuesday, January 28, 2025

And Then There Was Leonard Cohen

He was a man in a maze
who loved to fight and argue with God,
who wasn’t afraid to take issue
with prohibitions and guilt
and throw it all back in his face,
as it were.
Good for him.

And there was his love of Marianne

and Tangled Up in Blue,

the one that got way,

but not really, not for good.
You have to admire

the kiss savored for decades

and sex as a sacrament

that keeps the universe

from spinning apart.
Good for him.

At the end,

he signed his treaty

with the Great Whatever

and asked to be dealt out of the game.

He had ponied up the lyrics

that were as fluid and sacred as wine.

Good for him.

At the end,

he felt the dark night pulling him,

and his songs, his priests,

his hallelujah hosts

had blessed a world with sin,

and whether he knew it or not

had said it’s alright to be who you are.

All I have to say about any of it

is good for him.

~William Hammett

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Wednesday, January 22, 2025

Wildflower

In the wildflower
lies the universe
and perhaps many more
in a field so wide
that I cannot comprehend
the origin of its root.

It is a blossom

born of rain and sun

and yet already created

in its bodhisattva mind.

In the small is the great,

in the great is the small.

Its petals of glory

hold the all in the all.

There is a field to my right

with a thousand more.

If only the wildflower

could speak to me,

I would be free.

If only the wildflower

would speak to me,

I would be free.

~William Hammett

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