The Poetry of William Hammett

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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Wednesday, November 6, 2024

Continuum

Hanging upon every word
is another and then
another after that
until there is a grand scheme
of is.
The past has dalliance
with the future
through the intercourse of now
in these hanging, looping
bits of slipstream time,
a curious scaffolding,
a rolling patchwork quilt
made for Einstein
and his bending and folding,
the continuum for our kind
that must, like a trapeze artist,
grab hold and swing
you and me
from one minute
to the next.
There is no beginning.
There is no end.
We are spliced
into cunning creation
for a limited Broadway run
when we step upon the stage
to recite a line or two of text.

~William Hammett

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Thursday, October 31, 2024

Daisy Chain

Catholic children in my youth
hustled beneath stained glass windows,
trod on green and gracious clover
to make daisies into a crown
of thorns.

Later, hippies made flowers

into bracelets and beads

as they drank from the pagan horn

and rolled in the wet grass

from twilight to hedonistic

morn.

Let beauty be beauty.

Let glorious whites and yellows

burst forth like the suns

they were meant forever

to be.

Let ecstasy run down the pulse,

thrum the silk and satin skin,

drive the many-chambered heart.

Let ecstasy be the child

of ecstasy.

~William Hammett

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Monday, October 28, 2024

A Bowl of Fruit

I left a bowl of fruit
on the table in the kitchen
for you to eat and thus kindle desire
in your body and soul
because I thought we might lie together
on the bed beneath the full moon
streaming through the open window
so that whispers of wind
may confirm the sweetness of love
and move your long black hair
across the smooth white sheet.

~William Hammett

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Wednesday, October 23, 2024

Saints

They are statues of marble, alabaster, and stone,
shot full of arrows and bleeding
in the name of a name that has no name.

Let Jeanne d’Arc be toppled from her horse,
be given the needle and knocked into a Thorazine dream
before her horses trample an army of little ones
simply going through the terrible twos.

Their relics are skulls and bits of fingerbones,
tattered pieces of cloth that touched a thing
that has touched a thing wholly and completely
something but, in the end, nothing.

Let Augustine turn back upon himself
and take a lover or two or three
before he can condemn the centuries
to the agony of not or a flower
blossoming into nothing more than rot.

I do not believe in them except for you and me
and everyone else who has the audacity
to live and die, to be sold “as is,”
to be the I am, the perfection of imperfection
found in the roots of a tree, a pebble of bone
that walked before it limped and was consecrated
by simply, through decay, going home—
going home as is, going home.

~William Hammett

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Tuesday, October 15, 2024

Rolling Zen

The white teacup with blue veins
sits on its round, bone-white throne
of sorts.

The prostitute, weary from walking,

will decide to go home

in two years and an odd number

of days.

The days will surely be odd.

The Rolling Stones

have a new album called Om.

This, too, has not yet happened,

though the lost chord will have its say.

The yellow number two pencil

sits on the blank white loose-leaf pad.

The words will eventually come,

though the when is not an issue.

The midtown bus

carries the weight of saints

to Nirvana Street and the end of the line.

Some say there is a street called Straight

where people regain their sight.

Some say there is no end to the line.

The Rolling Stones don’t care

if the line has an end.

St. Paul cared too much

about everything.

He only wrote

on even-numbered days.

He was odd that way,

but very very straight.

Ducks ascend from the marsh

against a canvas of purple

turning into crimson and gold.

They’re not sure where they’re going,

but they've regained their sight,

and the ecstasy of flight is enough

to satisfy the urge.

It wouldn't be enough

to satisfy St. Paul.

God saw it all

and said that it was good,

but not your god or my god.

It’s the god at the end of the line,

if there is one.

Who can tell?

Perhaps the teacup or the pencil,

the ducks or the bus.

Om.

~William Hammett

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