The Poetry of William Hammett

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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Tuesday, December 10, 2024

Wrestling with an Angel

There are so many misconceptions
about what happened on the mountain.
So many.

The specter, a diabolical heat shimmer,

pushed and rolled me up the incline,

made my hands move like those of a puppet

to build the craggy stone altar.

It placed a knife in my hand,

curled my fingers and raised my arm

but I’d had quite enough and fought back.

I cursed and spat at this shadow of light,

this messenger of so-called meaning,

until it fell back, a twisting dust devil

racing into the desert from which it came.

I cut the cords, dropped the knife.

Isaac rose from the rocks and was free.

We stumbled down the mountain,

and I never looked back.

I still converse with grass, rivers, and trees,

but I no longer speak to the sky.

If it should happen to send words my way,
I do not listen, do not try

to translate messages into my native tongue.

It may converse with the dung for all I care.

It’s song will go unsung.

There will be no more sacrifices

to the how and the where and the when,

nor will I give up my allegiance to why.

~William Hammett

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Wednesday, December 4, 2024

Blessed are they who bless
the whores and the junkies
living on hard pavement
next to the empty warehouse
with the spray-painted graffiti
on the wrong side of town
as they trade rubber tubing,
needles, spoons and sex.

I tell you truly,

they have had their pint

of punishment already,

have tasted the bitter root

in ice and heat and rain

under the midnight moon

where even shadows

have the cloak of shadows.

They are the little ones

who will one day be planted

in fertile soil and fed

and clothed and kissed

upon their cherub cheeks,

given royal robes of blue,

rings on their fingers,

sandals on their feet,

for they never intended,

these wandering prodigals,

any harm to their father’s farm.

~William Hammett

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Friday, November 29, 2024

Lessons in Humility

I suppose it is good and wise
to focus on the nature of God
and the universe and the brain,
the prowess of the lion
and the thunder of large herds,
the tectonic shift of plates
aligning jigsaw pieces of Earth.

But I think it more valuable

to think of the ticking of a clock,

the slow movement of its second hand,

the ebb and flow of the tide

because the slow moon

pulls by degrees on the sea.

Perhaps there is more to be learned

watching the fly crawl on the windowpane,

the monk at prayer in his cell,

the mower clipping the grass just so

or observing a single blade

push through dark soil

and find humility in a small world

floating in star-rich cosmic expanse.

~William Hammett

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Friday, November 22, 2024

Frozen Pond

I come across the smooth, glazed
pond frozen in gray November,
rimmed by dark woods,
tall pines and dense thicket.

I imagine Christmas skaters

gliding over the sheet,

hands behind their backs,

scarves waving behind their necks,

rosy cheeks and down jackets

protecting them from a chill

just this side of death.

They disappear.

I am alone.

It is necessary to make peace

with such a winterscape,

to breathe it deep into the lungs,

for there are many more

waiting in the woods.

It will not last forever,

but for now it is a day

that masquerade morning,

light muted to wool,

has brought to pass.

My eyes turn gray,

and I am simply another tree

at the edge of the pond,

rooted and silent as the air.

I will wait.

~William Hammett

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Friday, November 15, 2024

Scarecrow

A smile sewn across his face,
he embraces life in the fields,
a daily witness to the sun,
wind, warm summer rain,
to the moon and its phases
mystical and wise in the messages
it fans across the sky like a Tarot deck
that explains the what, the where, the why.

He does not regard his life as crucifixion,
but as fruitful freedom to watch
the birth of seeds and the inevitable
falling of life into fallow fields.

He is witness to it all.

His body will soon be hidden

by a green field of corn.

In the winter he will be deposed,

sleep in the barn while angels sing,

really just the keen wind

whipping through slats in the wall.

He dreams of a floppy hat,

a checkered shirt, faded jeans,

confident that he will rise again,

leave the wood-straw tomb

and once more revel in the field,

the corn,

the pastures,

and wildflowers

crazy with Solomon’s bloom.

~William Hammett

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Monday, November 11, 2024

The New York City Subway System

Commuters with black tobacco lung
descend and rise in curious resurrection
to cold gray canyons only to die again.

They live in subterranean trails

carved from the deadest of rock

for the sake of electric shimmers

from silver bullet wails.

Standing,

the logos from Bethlehem

swings from a loopy strap,

unaware that he has been reborn

into the lap of downstream time.

He wears a worn hat

and baggy brown suit.

Sheep, riding and rocking

through switchover blackouts,

careen through invisible salvation

while scrolling a phone

or reading The New York Times.

This is a land of beggars, lepers,

the crippled and the blind

who wish to vacate the grave.

Connected by dramatis personae,

they march as a single outcast

onto the deep turnstile platform

which is their stage of seven stages.

Together, they are an incarnation

wanting only the opportunity to save.

This, therefore, is the universe.

This, the arrow of space and time

caught in orbital ellipse.

This, the marriage of the lamb

taken in holy howling vows

for better or for worse,

on hold until the future age

springs open a billion years

from now.

~William Hammett

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