The Poetry of William Hammett

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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Friday, January 17, 2025

Symphony

It is a grand assembly
of quavers and semiquavers,
a convocation
of quarter and half notes,
a diminished seventh,
a major fifth
propelled and prolific
from black prison bars,
the almighty staff,
into the air harmonic
by whispering woodwinds,
sensual strings,
audacious brass,
pounding tympany,
strangers in a cotillion,
unlike dancing
with unlike
until they are married,
swirling from altar
to reception hall
to consummation bed,
movements made
by key signatures,
sharp and minor,
into everyday life
tuned to vibrations
dancing counterpoint
up and down the spine.

~William Hammett

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Monday, January 13, 2025

Synchronicity

What are the chances
of you reading this?
What are the chances
of anything happening at all?

The quiet man sits on the park bench

that he dreamed about.

A woman sits on the bench,

the very same one,

next to the quiet man

that she dreamt about,

both drawn to time, place, and soul

by strange winding rivers

driven by eddies and currents

too deep to fathom.

Life is a dream,

and the dream is life

when we notice the random

billboard, song, painting,

the chance encounter,

the conspiracy of coincidence

for which we are finely-tuned

when we notice the noticing.

A petal falls in Argentina,

stirring the air into a ripple

becoming a breeze that causes

the wind to move an ocean

and bring forth rain in Burma

on a man who needs cleansing

from the grief of a buried wife.

I have met you,

and you have met me.

Is that not wondrous

in such a far-flung galaxy?

~William Hammett

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Tuesday, January 7, 2025

Pulp Fiction

It lives in a paperback,
the older the better,
with yellowed pages
brown at the edge.

It’s there that Mason,

Marlowe, and Spade

throw on trench coats

in the middle of the night

to track down a lead,

put a tail on a snitch.

A gunshot rings out

in the night, a lick

of hot yellow flame

disappearing into an alley.

There are cocktails

in a fancy lounge,

a conversation

with a fat man,

maybe a tryst

with the dame

after she’s given over

the stolen goods.

I look up from the page,

hoping the curious case

will never end.

That’s the nature

of deep-down sleuthing,

of solving a mystery.

That’s life.

~William Hammett

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Tuesday, December 31, 2024

New Year's Serenade

Bethlehem recedes from memory.
The supernova that exploded
above serene nativity silence
has mysteriously disappeared.

Only familiar constellations

now wheel the black savior sky.

The birth of peace and love

on a bed of dry yellow straw

is about to become yesterday’s news.

Knees bent in adoration

at hidden midnight mass,

heads tilted upwards in longing

to hear the highest hosanna,

have fled the candlelight,

the holly, the choir, the pews.

The manger has been replaced

by a carnival canvas tent,

faded red letters on the smelly dun.

Wild Bob’s Fireworks

is open for a limited run.

Cherry bombs, rockets, and red ringers,

supernovas wrapped in plastic,

can be ignited by striking a match

on a streetwalker's sandpaper face.

An open bar sits on every corner.

Sparkling wine and bourbon flow into gutters,

the Nile red with a baby’s blood,

the Fertile Crescent just a patch of weeds.

The ball drops ten, the ball drops nine.

The crowd in Times Square

freezes like an amoeba caught on a slide,

a cold crazy sea, a screaming mob.

The ball drops two, the ball drops one.

Christmas tree lots have disappeared.

The gunpowder revolt has begun.

~William Hammett

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Friday, December 27, 2024

The Sapling

When I was a sapling,
I knew nothing of the ways
of heaven and earth.

I thought the sun

would rise and set forever.

Time was a river with no beginning

and no end and would water my roots

until the very stars grew dim.

Now that I am a tree,

wide in the trunk,

the days are short,

the seasons compressed.

My leaves grow and fall,

grow and fall,

and my shadow

is always

chasing me down.

Children hang

from my branches

like ripe fruit

and then are gone,

rushing to find

some occupation in the dusk

that moments before

had been dawn.

And I think to myself,

winds rushing

through my mind

like a sieve,

wasn’t it only yesterday

that I was a sapling?

~William Hammett

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Monday, December 23, 2024

Lover Julie

I do not know what to call it,
this transcendence of pi,
the unending double-helix,

the rain that becomes stream

that becomes sea and cloud

and then rain again,

the sorceress who appears

randomly in technicolor dreams

in robes of royal blue,

the tantalizing twist,

the asymmetry and abandon

of Tantric sex.

But sometimes, oftentimes,

it takes upon itself a voice,

whispers, cajoles, moves me

from here to everywhere.

I call it Lover Julie

because it speaks to me

in numbers and rain,

in incantations bright,

erotic dance, sensual desire.

She’s fond of hiding

around the corner

in the hallway of an old school

of mahogany and stairwells.

“Come, come,” she says.

She is an angled beam

of yellow morning sun

streaming through the window,

and I am a dust mote

floating in her ecstasy.

~William Hammett

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