Tuesday, September 20, 2022

Falling Into You

I fall like the sun onto yellow straw
and then, in the abandoned loft, into you.

In the morning we walk through green grass
to the stream that flows into a tributary of rivers

and the clear liquid gravity that you spin anew.
On the wide ocean under the nude sky

I lie upon the swell that is your breast.
Seven times seventy times around the globe

the current bears me wide and warm,
and I only wish to drink in more,

the tidal pull of your eyes bringing me rest
as I fall into you, fall into you.

~William Hammett


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Wednesday, September 7, 2022

Black Lady Mountain

The black stone of Nui Ba Den rises above rice paddies
and thin farmers toiling beneath cone-shaped straw hats
as they herd oxen over dirt and bone dust
surrounding green rectangles and reflecting pools.

At night the full moon sits atop the peak,
staring at grass and water like the silver eye of a carp.
Underneath the muddy Mekong is a broken helicopter blade,
a sword beaten into a ploughshare a few miles

from the tattered threads of the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
A gentle wind combs the water and the rice weed,
summoning forth the moaning of long-forgotten ghosts.
It is unclear whether they are crying or finally making love.

~William Hammett

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