The Poetry of William Hammett

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

Site Map

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

Site Map

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

Site Map

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

Site Map