The waves wash over welcome sand,
the
Oversoul such a wide and ponderous thing.
There
is freedom on the land
for
legs and claws, feathers and wings
and
a simple life of quotidian things
and
me.
The
tide rolls out to the deep
and
carries away the steps on the path,
the
settling of accounts by cabin’s light.
It
is a relief to once again roll into the sea,
the
home where there is only a present tense
of
to be.
~William Hammett
Site Map
There are two of every kind,
though
the battle lines are a bit blurred these days.
Who
measured these awful cubits of would?
The
boat is tilted, crowded and heaving
as
if it had no axis, no sun to worship
on
days when Proteus sweeps the oceans
into
a shroud because Frost could make no peace
between
fire and the weeping polar ice.
The
incense from the forge and factory
does
not appease the carpenter or his boss,
who
thought the trip on a heavenly whirligig
might
last a hundred billion apocalyptic spins
after
Adam knocked up fruit-filled Eve.
We
drift through space, a milkweed spore
on
an ark, nothing less and nothing more.
The
wheel and a spark of electric flint
have
become the nuclear flu, a covid strain
with
binary digits running God’s motherboard.
Let
there be bread for the wandering wastrel horde
riding
the nonstop snow-piercing equatorial train.
Let
there be a dove with an olive branch,
a
night when only dolphins and crickets sing.
Let
there be a hundred million miracles
on
this troubled, ancient, spinning thing.
~William Hammett
Site Map
In the park in the fall,
I
hold my arms outstretched
as
if I had just awakened from sleep,
though
that happened many years ago.
I
try to touch my toes several times,
always
breathing, always breathing,
but
I can’t reach too far beneath my knees.
It’s
almost time to go home, I think,
or
maybe not quite yet.
I
turn my head to the left, breathing,
and
see a robin sitting on a branch
that
has lost all but three browning notes
that
once waved a symphony.
I
turn my head to the right, breathing,
and
see a young mother and her child.
He
is laughing at me, a wrinkled thing,
and
I begin laughing too.
I have become the cliché,
the
old man in the heavy overcoat
on
a bright chilly afternoon
sitting
on a park bench.
“Hello,
little boy. Namaste.”
I
stand and sit three times in a row,
always
breathing, always breathing.
It
is October indeed
and
almost time to go home.
Shadows
reclining on the grass
will
soon stir and whisper and rise,
tall
and dark and definitive,
and
start walking down the concrete path.
It
is October indeed.
It
is almost time to go home.
~William Hammett
Site Map
I attended an audience with the
Lord,
a
small white robe and zucchetto
floating
on the balcony like a dove.
He
looked at the sea of nuns and veils
heaving
like waves from a Galilee wind,
sun
painting the colonnade the color of clouds.
Latin
syllables flew through Saint Peter’s Square
like
pigeons, landing on Babel’s obelisk and cross.
“What
we need is a song,” said a priest from Budapest.
Snake
played the bass, the tall giraffe on the ‘bone
while
a beast with whiskers lightly scared the snare.
Black
girls in silver sequins snapped and swayed,
background
singers chanting “ooh poo pah doo.”
The
ship lumbered through the Med,
but
the albino could not calm the storm,
did
not walk on water, did not cross the sea
of
eyes looking to the balcony of be.
The
whore of Babylon lit a cigarette,
then
crushed it with a stiletto heel.
The
seven hills of Rome were done,
leveled
by an acid dream of horns and eyes
and
a dragon dressed to the nines in fire.
The
multitude nodded off and fell asleep by one.
~William Hammett
Site Map
I am writing a play, and the ink is
wine
or
the wine is ink—I don’t know which.
Iago
will not stop babbling his convoluted plot
to
make me jealous and kill the bitch,
but
which one? I have made so many.
I
only wish to kiss the lips of Juliet,
a
palmer and a pilgrim who will get her yet.
What
are these screams from a Globe on a globe
crying
for a gaggle of hag, a trio of witch?
I
have papers to grade in this oak-paneled cove
at
the edge of the ivy-colored quad,
the
wild yet carefully-planted Forest of Arden
while
the Avon carries the street, the ford, the garden.
Spritely
Ariel spins my mind like the moon:
the
play’s the thing wherein I’ll catch
the
conscience of the wrongful king
while
Prospero, magician extraordinaire,
conjures
up a storm so that Miranda,
a
lipstick looker and first-class babe,
might
marry her flamenco jape and jade.
Between
you and me, I spin it all out of air.
Call
me Will. I am the bard and he is me.
The
essays are done and the claret is near.
I
do the iambic nine-to-five and lecture on the lines,
but
who’s to say I’m not the seer
in
the long ago or the still to come in time?
~William Hammett
Site Map
The sun is new.
White
breakers roll
onto
sand with foam and roar.
A
crimson and orange sky
rises
into blue,
the
curtain up
and
lines recited by surf
and
gulls riding
updrafts
of sea wind
and
swells of current
over
the deep mind
of
a waking world.
It
is the dawn
of
new and everlasting
time
spun from nothing
but
the vacuum and void,
an
idea with an idea
of
form and substance.
From
east to west,
light
sweeps the land
into
cities and prairies
and
uneven mountains
that
insist on rock-rise.
From
water, it all begins again.
~William Hammett
Site Map
I saw her in the weave of time,
a
shimmer in a silver stream,
scoping
out couture and purple Prada
while
wearing the seven veils of Salome,
eyeliner
drawn into fine Egyptian points.
We
had dinner and water made from wine
beneath
the Brooklyn Bridge
before
heading to a lover’s loft
where
the Soho demons howled
until
she released them with a midnight sigh.
The
magician was nowhere to be seen,
just
a woman with her bangles and beads.
We
walked to the Village and past the Tombs
hand
in hand, the femme younger than the script
would
have the generations believe,
a
May-December flip of the hair and heart.
Oh,
she was the pearl of great price,
the
treasure hidden in a field.
Time
passed, and New Hampshire roped us in
as
we settled on a plausible tale to spin
on
scrolls where ink specified iota and jot.
We
made too much love and not enough,
her
red lips, dark hair, blue eyes
never
growing old like a dead sea
with
salt and dying fish that were multiplied.
Her
love was a shimmer in a silver stream,
twisting
and rising and turning
and
always always to die for.
~William Hammett
Site Map
The harried housewife stops for the
train—
the
gate swing and bell ring—
a
silver snake speeding into burbs.
She
crosses the hump of rails
to
find a home, to cook a meal,
a
yellow firefly blinking into sleep.
The
comet speeds through dark matter cold—
a
tail of dust, a hint of home—
iron-nickel
ice crossing the belt
to
warm itself, to speak with Brother Saul.
The
whip-swing sling shot
sends
it to the burbs where sleeping dogs lie.
~William Hammett
Site Map
They are old soldiers home from the
war,
spines
cracked and broken,
aching
from the weight of life
and
stories that beg to be told.
The
pages are yellow, like the teeth
of
men who have seen a century crawl
on
its knees from birth to fragility.
Memories
are stored along the bones,
thread
stitching together the decades.
Dog
ears measure first love, innocent kisses,
the
time by the stream in the woods
when
clothes were shed with abandon
and
the opposite sex was a game
of
flirtation and near misses.
Some
rose early in the blue morning
for
a factory with a stack,
an
office with a clock
with
only a nine and five on its face.
There’s
a bookmarker here and there
whispering
“I simply can’t go on right now,
but
maybe later, maybe later.”
Dust
on the covers and the tops of the pages
seems
to anticipate death,
and
yet they live on, their minds intact
and
ready to quote a poem or tale
of
this day or that,
of
how cleansing the rain was
or
how the land was sunny and flat.
They
have been consigned to retirement,
yearning
like Ulysses for years—more years—
and
yet these old men with vellum souls,
their
thoughts as precise as ink,
seem
to ponder, word by word
and
line by line, the real possibility
that
they are destined for immortality.
~William Hammett
Site Map
The old Chines man named Po
sat
on the mountain and disappeared,
his
meditations swept away by the wind.
The
mountain, too, dissolved over time.
The
river cannot remain a river
as
long as it finds a home in the sea,
and
oceans cannot remain water
as
long as the clouds read the waves like Braille.
You
and I will not inhabit skin and bones
when
clocks are frozen at the end of time.
The
earth prays for dust and dirt
that
it may remain a celestial compost heap.
The
lighthouse drops below the horizon
as
the freighter lumbers out to sea.
The
Book of Changes is made of yarrow sticks
that
fall like scarecrows too tired to scare the sky.
Do
you understand these lines
unraveling
like a tapestry with threads
pulled
by a peasant tired of its design?
Even
this poem must die.
~William Hammett
Site Map
Today I am sitting,
breathing
in the now
and
exhaling the whys
and
legalistic wherefores.
I
am not interested
in
chapter and verse,
the
codex of Babylon
or
the Magna Carta shuffle.
I
watch jays and cardinals,
who
seem to have forsaken
philosophy
and vows
for
the freedom of flight.
I
drift from the park bench,
escape
the clawing of trees
and
their Biblical verses,
and
find heaven on the wing.
I
don’t need an amen.
~William Hammett
Site Map
Perhaps I could deal with a flooded
world,
a
sky when the sun stopped marching at noon,
or
an angry god who hated Philistine platoons
depending
on the day of the week.
I
might be amenable to ten basic codes
chiseled
into heartless Sinai stone
or
be persuaded to dismantle my golden calf
and
babble an extra language or two
if
I were a Barnum and Bailey madcap wandering Jew.
All
of these insults and demands would be just fine
if
I could grow old with a long white beard
and
have my servants’ feet trample the harvest
into
a dozen blends of red, full-bodied wine,
if
I could sit peacefully outside my tent
and
survey sheep and wives and concubines.
My
son could riff and wail on an oxen horn,
my
daughter wiggle a mean hoochie coo
on
desert land where the wind blows hot
and
Yahweh more than a little cold.
I’d
be more than amenable, more than fine
to
watch sheep and wives and concubines.
~William Hammett
Site Map
There will come a time
when
I wake up,
climb
out of my body,
dress
in a old brown suit,
and
fly in a matter of minutes
to
a café in Lisbon,
the
dark waters of the Atlantic
moving
my soul
with
dark etheric dreams.
I
will drink red wine,
eat
bread and cheese,
dance
the Vira,
and
make love
to
the dark-haired beauty
who
has played Rodrigo
on a classical guitar.
The
moon will rise
and
throw silver
through
an open window
on
the white sheets
where
we spent long hours
looking
into each other’s eyes.
I
will be home soon enough,
slipping
back into my skin
in
time to fall asleep again
so
that I may wake
in
a bag of old bones
that
I drag to the kitchen,
where
I make a pot of coffee,
wondering
whether it was a dream
or
something far more real,
not
that it makes a difference.
Such
mornings are what makes life
so
grand.
~William Hammett
Site Map
There
is nothing more important
to the
rising of the blood
than the
way a woman
moistens
her lips lightly
with a
tongue that is there and gone,
or the
way
she turns
her head slightly,
smiles
with only a crescent inclination,
raises a long
eyebrow,
or blinks
as she turns the corner,
inviting
you to follow
a slender
sash of femininity
swaying
in the wind
and her
come hither now,
come
hither.
~William Hammett
Site Map
In
the summer of 1946, the young man stepped
from ship
to train to bus and sat on broken springs
and worn
leather as a silver motor coach
lumbered
through the Midwest spewing black exhaust
into the
already-hazy morning.
He looked
out the window, saw children playing tag,
soldiers
wading in waves while trying to take Omaha Beach.
The bus
backfired, and he heard gunshots,
heard
cloudless thunder from gray battleships
riding
the offshore swell.
He heard
the whining of the bus engine,
rapid
artillery fire spitting over razor wire.
After
long hours, a yellow straw suitcase
hanging
from his fingers, he climbed three wooden steps
and stood
on the gray porch in front of a screen door.
“Mama,
I’m home. I’m home.”
After a
night’s rest and a pitcher of lemonade,
his
routine was the same from morning to dusk.
He stood
in the fields, a scarecrow looking for German troops
riding
jeeps into San Michel.
The black
crows overhead failed to realize that it was war,
or maybe
they did.
~William Hammett
Site Map
Well, I mean you know at the start
it seemed
mostly
living with whores in rundown apartments,
maybe
in New Orleans and maybe elsewhere,
chopping
garlic cloves and riding the bus,
confessional
to a fault, words splayed on a page,
mostly
alphabetical scattershot thrown at the wall
to
see what sticks, but maybe you were howling like Alan
or
riding a Coney Island mind, a Ferlinghetti whirligig,
a
metronome ticking to the beat of a Beat
over
and over again while drinking gin.
You
could just as soon have written
about
Vaseline hair or Thousand Island dressing
or
some female French Quarter anatomy
wrapped
in a kimono, and maybe you were
as
free and loose as Mary Oliver,
only
with a little heron acid trip thrown in
for
some seasoning, word jambalaya on the bayou,
and
in the end I guess it was kind of hip,
kind
of cool with a standup bass
and
poetry slams in a coffeehouse kind of way.
~William Hammett
Site Map
