quiet
There's an owl outside
and I haven't heard
owls since Massachusetts
with the dark weave of tree branches
and the solid scent of pine
the ultimate quietness of a soft ocean
at night.
There is a difference between city
houses, suburban houses, built of
sheetrock and sturdy window frames,
and houses built far apart, where
sea-grass meets doorframe and
sand meets carpet, where the night
is not blurred and broken into shards
of streetlight, where a soft breeze
rustles leaves and rumbles gravel,
where there is no super highway, no airplanes,
no barrier
between you and the fresh air
the sound of an owl
and the whisper of something far
older.
~Hammeh
11.9.14
There was a lot of darkness and a lot of eggnog
I feel like I've been drained
My thoughts
like building blocks do not fit
a square peg in a round hole
there are edges missing
and a muse
only finds scraps or nearly-wholes
to fill the breaches strewn across my soul.
Grinding down each thought or word
or symbool should perfect it
should make it shine
make it fit
quietly and profoundly in lines made
with simple enjambment,
but instead
they grate against each other,
filing bits away until only the hard,
blunt object sticks out with
no purpose or prose
or poetry.
~Hammeh
My thoughts
like building blocks do not fit
a square peg in a round hole
there are edges missing
and a muse
only finds scraps or nearly-wholes
to fill the breaches strewn across my soul.
Grinding down each thought or word
or symbool should perfect it
should make it shine
make it fit
quietly and profoundly in lines made
with simple enjambment,
but instead
they grate against each other,
filing bits away until only the hard,
blunt object sticks out with
no purpose or prose
or poetry.
~Hammeh
25.4.13
Just take a look at us
"How many times do I have to tell you?" Nyaka groaned, shifting positions so that she was now hunched over Alcaeus, watching the screen he was working on.
Alcaeus flinched, not expecting her voice to be suddenly next to his ear. Last he had checked, she had been on the other side of the room having a chat with that weird lizard thing....the thing she insisted not only had a name and rank, but also apparently cast some really great spells. Yeah, he wasn't going to get mixed up in that relationship any time soon.
"Sorry," he answered. "What, exactly, was I doing wrong?" Perhaps a bit too snide, but he had been working on this project all night and was no longer sure whether or not he had blinked in the last few minutes.
Probably not a good sign.
"You keep spelling his name wrong!" She hissed, jabbing a pointy finger at his monitor. "It's R-A-I-I-S; you keep forgetting the second 'i'."
Alcaeus quickly corrected his mistake, "Sorry, sorry. It's hard to keep track of all these weird names, you know."
Nyaka raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, I think I know."
~Hammeh
3.3.13
Upon My Return
the walls of england
against the warmth of bright wind and yellow-blue sun.
the promise of damp grass and prickly ferns tickling
beneath the boundless clouds, each more wide and puffed up —
like poets full of words, waiting to let loose upon the never-ending plush of great
green hills,
sloping for centuries into the distance,
dipping foot-hills into the shocking cold of the ocean,
and crossed again and again by the walls
built before time meant something more than seasons.
~Hammeh
13.1.13
In the end, there were lemons
Serotonin
It's having control over nothing
that causes the obsessive tiny
massive breaks in structure —
that cause my words to become
rough and ragged; there is no time
no care
for refinement.
I practice art like a sport,
following only house rules,
things that only make sense
when, for years, I have sat there
and forced memories —
there is no chance to edit the insanity
Start here, BEGIN WRITING
You have 25 minutes,
only write what you
know — they take off
for guessing.
Don't write about love.
Your time ENDS now.
~Hammeh
It's having control over nothing
that causes the obsessive tiny
massive breaks in structure —
that cause my words to become
rough and ragged; there is no time
no care
for refinement.
I practice art like a sport,
following only house rules,
things that only make sense
when, for years, I have sat there
and forced memories —
there is no chance to edit the insanity
Start here, BEGIN WRITING
You have 25 minutes,
only write what you
know — they take off
for guessing.
Don't write about love.
Your time ENDS now.
~Hammeh
15.9.12
Everybody Lies
4:00 pm and still in bed
Like a jellyfish, my body
morphs.
Doorways become my objective,
and the drapery my haunt.
You can find me, sequestered into small spaces —
a square, an egg, a disc. I lurk in the back,
the lost soul, the invisible one, one without hope.
Sometimes, I prey on krill.
It's unnatural, they say.
But I chose this shape, this ambiguous enigma.
I wrapped myself in jelly in the hopes that
the fall would not affect me,
in tentacles so you could not come close.
Unused to the shape, I mistake tentacles for feet;
but my body is placid, brainless, spineless, indentured to the waves of the world about it.
My purpose is moot, so my body morphs
to a shape unneeded and impenetrable.
~Hammeh
Like a jellyfish, my body
morphs.
Doorways become my objective,
and the drapery my haunt.
You can find me, sequestered into small spaces —
a square, an egg, a disc. I lurk in the back,
the lost soul, the invisible one, one without hope.
Sometimes, I prey on krill.
It's unnatural, they say.
But I chose this shape, this ambiguous enigma.
I wrapped myself in jelly in the hopes that
the fall would not affect me,
in tentacles so you could not come close.
Unused to the shape, I mistake tentacles for feet;
but my body is placid, brainless, spineless, indentured to the waves of the world about it.
My purpose is moot, so my body morphs
to a shape unneeded and impenetrable.
~Hammeh
Like A Dove in the Night
Depression
Holding on to the edge,
a reflection appears – a mirror against the ground.
Perhaps the difference lies in being able –
rough fingers turned soft but remembering guitar strings –
to touch the reality, to feel the whisper of trees before a storm,
to dig your nails in and refuse —
biting and determined —
to accept.
The wind like sand flying through trees to the end of the pail, and there in the night
it's just you and the words and the deep hum of crickets harmonizing with the fan.
The air is biting away pieces of my soul,
dark and secret and completely exposed to the viciousness of the breeze.
I plaster words like bandages over the caverns of my soul, but reality whips through, leaving vacant stretches of frayed fabric
and endless remembrance of what once was,
and I have nothing left to lose.
~Hammeh
Holding on to the edge,
a reflection appears – a mirror against the ground.
Perhaps the difference lies in being able –
rough fingers turned soft but remembering guitar strings –
to touch the reality, to feel the whisper of trees before a storm,
to dig your nails in and refuse —
biting and determined —
to accept.
The wind like sand flying through trees to the end of the pail, and there in the night
it's just you and the words and the deep hum of crickets harmonizing with the fan.
The air is biting away pieces of my soul,
dark and secret and completely exposed to the viciousness of the breeze.
I plaster words like bandages over the caverns of my soul, but reality whips through, leaving vacant stretches of frayed fabric
and endless remembrance of what once was,
and I have nothing left to lose.
~Hammeh
29.4.12
Ichi, ni, sunshine, yon, we go!
An absence of soul.
Have you ever seen those magnetic words all clustered together in a box? Pulling them apart and threading them together is such a challenge, but it's satisfying and enjoyable too. Finding just the right word to complete your thought or sentence? Awesome.
I feel like there's a pit inside of me, burrowed between vital organs, where there is a nest of words, all bungled together and mismatched, and it's my job to pull them out — but it's kind of like that game Operation, where if you hit the sides, you have to let the prize go. Slowly, carefully, I try to extract each perfect word from within; they have to pass through the treacherous path from pit to mouth to hands before they can emerge in words, spoken or written.
As the semester, and, in fact, my undergraduate career comes to a close, I find that this mass of words is being used up much more quickly than before; I must regenerate my supply, but there is no time for a break, a pause, a rest, before the next paper, presentation, exam is demanded from me. I need a moment to breathe before none of them are left.
These words have dwindled within me, and before I have used the last of them, I must find inspiration to restore the missing pieces of me.
Cheers,
~Hammeh
Have you ever seen those magnetic words all clustered together in a box? Pulling them apart and threading them together is such a challenge, but it's satisfying and enjoyable too. Finding just the right word to complete your thought or sentence? Awesome.
I feel like there's a pit inside of me, burrowed between vital organs, where there is a nest of words, all bungled together and mismatched, and it's my job to pull them out — but it's kind of like that game Operation, where if you hit the sides, you have to let the prize go. Slowly, carefully, I try to extract each perfect word from within; they have to pass through the treacherous path from pit to mouth to hands before they can emerge in words, spoken or written.
As the semester, and, in fact, my undergraduate career comes to a close, I find that this mass of words is being used up much more quickly than before; I must regenerate my supply, but there is no time for a break, a pause, a rest, before the next paper, presentation, exam is demanded from me. I need a moment to breathe before none of them are left.
These words have dwindled within me, and before I have used the last of them, I must find inspiration to restore the missing pieces of me.
Cheers,
~Hammeh
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