SELECTED POETRY

by
Damion Hamilton

THE WOUND

It could come from a bad childhood
Or bad parents, or growing up in the wrong neighborhood,
Or it could come from going to the wrong schools,
It could be caused by, being punched too much,
Or teased too often, but it�s there
As we follow after wrong ideals and mishap theories
Always the wound and the dull flashing of yesterday
As we try to move on
But the damn wound won�t let us forget;
It�s image so poignant, so poignant
And we must forget, and try to forget
As most people try to forget, but I can�t and know
Others who can not forget either
Those pale wounds, still hurting slightly
If you put a finger or palm over them
So many of our wounds threading through
The order and chaos of our lives
Those wounds write books
Those wounds create paintings
Those wounds write music
Those wounds get up in the mornings
Those wounds type at computers all day long
Those wounds drive busses
Those wounds work on the Ford assembly line
Those wounds drive cars
Those wounds must prepare dinner
Those wounds must try to fall asleep at night
Those wounds must move on
The wounds
The wounds
The wounds

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ANTS AND CHILDHOOD

When I was a little kid
I used to get down on my hands and knees
And watch the ants
They were so strong
Even though I did not know it at the time

They would be carrying the bodies of their fallen brethren
Or pieces of discarded food particles
And this meant nothing to me then
And they were so small; so I couldn�t think of them as being strong

How could something so light in weight, and so tiny be so strong
I used to watch them fight each other
And this would arouse my anger even further
How could something so small be so aggressive?
So with my anger protracted I would smear their black and brown
Bodies against the cement with my thumb
With no other reason, than that I could
Now I am nearsighted, perhaps from staring at the ants
On hand and knees
And this is karma in a way

But latter when the day changed into night
And I could no longer see the ants any longer
Perhaps it was summer and the neighborhood kids used to gather
And run around, and play hide and go seek
And we would laugh and scream and hit each other
Running as fast as we could

And when we grew tired, we would lay down in the grass
And watch the stars
And the kids would just start naming the constellations:
That� the Big Dipper, that�s the Little Dipper, and that one
Over there is Orion
And I would just lay back and pretend to know
Even though I didn�t and look at the stars,
And I still can�t distinguish the constellations

And we would giggle and slap each other
And talk about what we wanted to be when we grew up
Those nights, I found no intoxication like this�
The intoxication of childhood
And we lived in the ghetto and we were happy and poor
And dreamed of riches, even though we were happy with out them
And no one could have told us what happiness was or what
Millionaires were really like

And no one could have told us that we were rich
In a way, deep in our felicity and naivete

We wanted to be something other
Than what we were

Those hot puerile nights were impeccable
And this night I wonder were the boys are now
Perhaps some are married, perhaps some of them are in
Jail, perhaps some of them have jobs in which they hate,
But I doubt if any of them are millionaires

And sometimes I sit and wonder if any of the boys
Sit back and remember how good we had it
With hide and go seek and looking at the stars
Those hot puerile nights
Even though we were not millionaires

---

THE WEALTHY

Oh, if I was a rich man
I would give out one hundred dollar bills
to bums, who passed me on the streets,
so many people are needy and lonely
and one learns this by walking the streets
of any city, with people waiting on benches
waiting on something to arrive
yeah, I'll give them the money
because they are always asking for something
but I have so little
I would give them all hundred dollar bills
if I could--
they think that I can help them
and I take this as a compliment
but I have so little, and can not help them,
yet some people do not ask for money
they just want to talk-- usually about anything
and I can't even give them this--
I hardly ever talk about anything,
I just want to sit on benches and be quite,
and watch the world past by,
and I think it is a shame, more millionaires
are not walking the streets, giving it all
to the needy and the lonely
if I was a rich man
I would

---

PREYED UPON

Well the bad jobs with the starvation wages
were after me
along with the military and napalm
well the jails and
pirates in uniforms were after me too
well an abandoned youth was after me;
asking me what went wrong? Well a defective sense of motion,
was after me, and it's ghosts came along too
well the tragedy of communication
was after me; along with
the sallow stylist of poverty
and the chants from the crowd
ignited my ears and my brain
well the knaves in the marketplace
wanted to convert me
but the hearts in my eyes were heretical
they also wanted me clean
but I refused to bathe my curiosity
well the loins wanted women
but my voice was pale and wan
and the loins threatened me daily
with murder
and there was no place to hide
for the victim or the hunter

---

VIDEO ADDICT

When I was a little kid
I was beginning to understand the nature of addiction
And obsession

I began going down to the local video game
Arcade and began using my two--dollar a week
Allowance to pay for the games

I forgot all about hard candy, chocolate bars,
Bumble gum, sodas and chocolate milk and baseball cards�
Which is what I used to spend my allowance on prior
To my discovery of the video games

I was very bad when I first started playing those
Video games, I would pour quarter after quarter into
Those slots playing the boxing games, the martial arts games
And Pac�Man

Those games were a great con because one eventually
Got better with the games; but only after putting
Quarter after quarter down the slots
I began to slowly progress, and the slightest
Victory was very invigorating, and I would
Stare at those screens tapping the buttons of those
Machines wildly, enthralled by the characters
On the screen, I forgot all about baseball games, toys
And friends and loss my sense of time
The only thing that seemed to matter was the character
On the screen and my battle against them

Then something began to happen�I began to notice
That my two--dollar a week allowance wasn�t nearly enough
To pay for the video game habit, I was losing and winning
And losing and losing mostly and gaining victory,
Small and slowly; but I needed more money to keep playing,
And I knew where my mother kept the money in her purse,
So I began taking money from her purse; I had never thought
Of stealing money from her previously and I remember feeling
Horrible while I was doing it�but it was something that had to
Be done, all the while thinking of the video games and the feelings
They evoked in me

I would walk out the door and then to the corner store
To play the video games, and when I ran out of money
I would run back home to steal the money, then back to the
Store to play the games; I was running, playing and stealing
And stealing and playing and running; I hardly noticed people
While I was running back and forth to that little store;
The neighborhood kids would say something to me, and I
Would keep on running, not even bothering to speak

Eventually I became better and better, and began
Not to feel guilty about taking the money
And people began to notice that I was becoming better
And people began to watch me as I played, as when before
No one would notice or they would glance over and giggle,
As I lost quickly; now I was getting good and they would just
Stare at me with earnest eyes and earnest faces; but there was still
A few guys who were better than me, and this made me very jealous

And I eventually became better than them, then everyone
Began watching me; I was the kid�only around nine or ten years
Old and everybody in the video arcade was teenagers
And they all watched me, and wondered how I was doing this�
This obsessed and addicted kid, who was so awful a few
Months ago, now they are all watching me and envious of
My talent�I felt very good about everything,
They were all bigger than me, and I used to think that they
Would just shove me out of the way and not let
Me play; but they didn�t, they all wanted to see me play
And eventually I ended up conquering one of the games
And everybody kept on asking me to keeping playing
The game and beating it all over again; as everyone
Stood around me gaping and yelling and patting me on the back

And things went along well for a time, and then people began to resent me
Then one day I went down to the arcade,
I sat some quarters down on one of the machines, and this guy
Took them, while I was looking right at him and I asked him
Why did he do that? He said that he didn�t and he took
The rest of my money out of my pocket, and I wanted to hit
Him, but he was big and mean looking; but I just looked at him like
I wanted to kill him, then I looked around, and all of
My fans just looked away from me and did nothing�I thought
Somebody would help me, but they didn�t-- so I got out there
And began thinking that I should have told somebody about
What had happened, somebody like an adult; then I remembered?
That I had stolen the money�so I couldn�t, and that ended
My obsession and addiction to video-- game arcades

---

THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER

(Inspired by Carson McCullers novel of the same name)

Reading the Modern Library version of the novel
And studying her likeness on the cover
That angelic face and those angelic eyes
She was only twenty�three when she had written it
And she had the pen, the motion, the way of the masters

A heart can always seek and very rarely find
But always seeking somehow
And one can sit on a porch still at night
Looking at the stars
While Mozart plays on in invisible ears
And we�re away from the kids, who are playing
Games down below
And we are glad to be away from the kids
But we are happy that they are down there still
While Mozart plays alone with the stars

In youth, sometimes we think that the music
Will go on forever
But someday the notes stop ringing and we feel cheated
And the music stops and are bodies ache
As Mozart plays muffled in the shadows of the stars

Well, of coarse there�s beer, and I like that best too,
Along with the people in the coffeehouses and bars
Dreaming of: breasts, limbs, grenades and automatic rifles
But men rarely act, because their bodies, hearts
And minds are weary

Turning the magic of those pages with coffee smeared thumbs
As one feels as if one should hear trumpets and laugh and smile,
And tell people about this wonderful book
And it�s late on a Friday night; even forgetting the women
That give only apart of themselves, and it�s usually not the heart
The word is giving this night, as my heart chains rattle,
I smile thinking of her

---

THE KING

I knew a man who wanted to be king
That was something he had always dreamed
But he was very poor
Yet always had this dream

He lived to an old age, but he was never king
He imagined himself majestic in dreams

He wondered what it would be like
To rise like a mountain�s breath
For downcast eyes to look up to him
And for the public to gather importance
From every thought of his uttered

To have men, women and children smile
A benevolent smile, as he perched on his throne

That must be nice, he smiled the heart of a moon
And he drank out of the pint of vodka
He had in his hand

Still dreaming, the image of the dream spread across
Night, like a storm cloud

Then he reckoned that kings must get bored too
With all their needs satiated
To never known the sun which rests in the unfortunate stomach
And those smiles, those smiles which can admire
Too much nearer, or afar
As he thought that even a king maybe unhappy
On the far end of an extreme

Then he closed his eyes and sat back on his bench
Content that he was not a king
Then thinking: what would it be like for just a month�
Maybe longer

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RUSSIAN NOVEL

Know when I go out into the street
I want to dress myself in shabby clothing,
as if I was a nineteenth century Russian peasant
and I would feel happy for a while
thinking of Gorky or Turgenev

But it won't last for long, knowing that people in the street
would sneer at me as I passed them
and my face along with a natural high
would quickly descend to the ground for awhile

Buy I will think of Liza or Sonya
and quickly brighten up

My faux Russian body and faux Russian thoughts in my head
and the Russian girls will make me feel better
while the sunlight hides, thus it can't invigorate me
with it's yellow tonic

Maybe I'll see one on a subway train or on A Streetcar Named Desire
and she'll be standing up and leaning
against a hand rail with her
Russian body and Russian eyes

Oh, she'll never notice me as the train stops, and she ambles along into
the evening along with her Russian eyes
and I'll retreat alone into my Russian dreams

Oh. The stuff one puts into poems never works!

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WORLD OF BUSINESS

I write this, feeling more than slightly stupid
knowing in my age, both master and slave are businessmen
and that there is hardly any room for a poet/ dreamer

But I write these lines as the sun rides my back
and magic makes my fingers tap the keyboard of the typewriter
brooding over things, and getting them down through
the math of the days

walking or driving through the streets of my city,
glassy eyed with beer or wine, with five dollars in my pocket
and not really knowing who I see
yet sometimes I smile as we pass and try to look �cool�
while they try to look �cool�

and the street kids try to sell me weed, while I am thinking
of Aldous Huxley. But everyone seems to be selling something
as I hope to sell my poems (someday)
and the young girls in the street sell their looks for a glance
and I refuse these things as I would A Brave New World

But I refuse to feel stupid, embracing the day,
even though I maybe breathing, walking through a dystopia

---

AND... PAIN CONSIDERED

You can�t believe people�s voices
Well, you can�t believe the words
Coming from the tongue
Well you can find some truth in the sound, the pitch
Of the voice, these things don�t lie
Those impassive faces don�t lie: the eyes, the nose, and the lips
The cheekbones reveal things to me
Along with the listlessness of a slow stride
Revealing things to me
And I wait in the shadows of a chaotic silence
There is some knowledge obtained in the pauses of space
As men and women wait for something to arrive
A word perhaps, or a gesture
A recompense, something to get one through the day
And when this arrives a laugh: with the hilarity of wild dogs
And fear being born on something coming to fruition
The noise machine of silence, as some shuffle
Through it�s immutability
Leaving behind newspapers, radios and dreams in childhood
And a natural foolishness for useful things
As a line of demarcation slices it in half
Leaving some abstract things divided behind

---

THE DAYS

Yeah man, I know what it is like
Coming home from a low paying job
Everything drained,
Trying to forget the brief past of the day
Coming home to a small room,
In a small apartment,
Or to a old room in your parent�s house
And there�s only television and something
Bad to eat to welcome you
And being to tired to go anywhere
To do anything, and besides the police
Officers own the streets� so the streets
Are very dull
And one can forget about women
They are with somebody else�
Somebody reliable straight strong clever
Nicely adjusted dull and with a better paying job
And they�ll have normal faces with normal jobs
Wearing normal clothes and driving normal cars
And their women will have normal smiles, normal
Hair and better than normal tits
And where2 is they going?
They are going to coffee shops, shopping malls,
Baseball games, music shows restaurants
Dance clubs and bars
And whatever makes these circumstances or chances
I do not know�
I do not know why some are in jails and asylums are
Poor and sick� while some have big houses and opportunity
And some of the others have normal lives with normal
Jobs normal ambitions and normal dreams
And for me and some of the others� there will
Be something humble to eat and something humble to drink
And a bath and a shower to soothe are tired bodies
And nerves and we�ll get out of the shower or bath
And fall asleep in our beds to television
And a roof over our heads�
And in the mornings there will be a job
To awaken to and it will awaken to us
As the day starts, and opens again for us
And some of the others

---

CONTROL

To master anything
Is to become a slave
To that in which you master
As the whore masters the pimp
The dollar masters the man
The education masters the student
The war masters the armies
The game masters the players
The addiction masters the addict
The weights masters the weight lifter
Killing masters the killing
The object loved masters
The lover
Writing masters the writers
As someone had to be someplace
Doing something

---

NICE AND NEAT

The people around me worry about
Neat homes
With neat rooms
With neat lawns
And neat backyards
And neat streets
And neat parks
And neat parking lots
And neat neighbourhoods
Along with well scrubbed and neat cars

Everything nice and neat

And I can�t relate to this
This nice and neat order

I wrap myself in the clothing of chaos
And chaos wraps itself around me

In room books are everywhere and papers are everywhere
Along with clothes and shoes and hangers
And lighters and notebooks
Coins are all over the dresser
Along with bills and notices for various things

And my car isn�t any better (it�s actually worse)

Potato chip bags are everywhere
Along with empty energy drink cans
Motor oil containers
Alternative newspapers going back nearly a year
Along with towels and various articles of clothing

People often think that I live in my car
And are often amazed when the peer inside
They must think I�m a slob or crazy or something

But they don�t seem to understand my particular chaos
With the sad and insane warehouse job
Along with writing and submitting to editors
And somehow trying to find the time to read books
And to think
There seems to be hardly any time for anything else
Along with poverty war disease and the threat of nuclear war
Which is all around us

Perhaps I live in different universe than these people

I am confounded and baffled
By their nice and neatness

My things and objects in disarray
While this go on

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� Damion Hamilton
Reproduced with permission

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