Pat Hammer

Touching / Wanting More

My hands have touched fresh ice and felt it
trickle, then tremble in my palms.
My hands have dug endlessly through roots,
through mud, searching for seeds to feed my hunger.

These hands have touched the age-old basalt
of the Palisades above the Hudson, the stepping stones
along the Giant’s Causeway above the Glens of Antrim,
and my fingers have been happily, geologically chafed.

These hands have touched the shimmering
sand of India and, unhappily, lost
those goddess-grains from under my nails,
washing away all sins in the dusk-filled Ganges.

My hands have touched the thirsty trunks of Joshua
trees, the fierce blooming flowers in the desert
outside Santa Fe that, like myself, have wanted
more in the early morning light.

Smelling / Remembering More

My nose has smelled the smoky
musk from middle-aged men on buses,
in subway cars, on theater lines, and
I have been reminded of my own
father, long passed on, his sweat
and Old Spice mingling with the odor
of his cigar; I had thought it so
unique and now I find his smell
still lingers on other men.

My nose has smelled the sunrise
color and aroma of butterscotch drops
in dark, dank, coin-laden change purses,
and smelled the Dove-soaped hand
of my grandmother, fresh from cooling
apple tarts and boiling neck bones; I have
sensed her memory today at the pharmacy,
in the candy aisle, and I wish her back
with us again.

My nose has smelled high cut grass
on family farms in County Limerick,
and I have been offended by the off-green
pungency gathered from these fields, compacted
and stored, reminding me of the smell of
cow pats, dropped casually and frequently;
but as a granduncle taught me this smell
of silage—any smell—turns sweet as honey
the longer it becomes familiar.

Tasting / Disliking More

My tongue has tasted the tongue
of cows and I have been left speechless
by my own actions, the mastication,
chewing up these tongues, the very objects
these bovines once used when lowing
and mooing and chomping. I am utterly
determined never to eat again
these tongues that once chewed their own
cud.

My tongue has tasted eel and scrod
and octopus and other fashionable sushi.
I have squirmed and slithered
in my seat as if worms were boring
through the dark hole of my mouth.
I confine myself now
to cooked shrimp or tuna
salad sandwiches
alone.

My tongue has tasted these peculiar
delights, but today, as plain
garden variety snow has fallen
from the sky, I have been warned
by the radio not to take a bite.
Snow, it turns out, is not
pure and driven but formed
by many a nasty
and on the run
bacterium.

Listening / Hearing More

My ears have heard the peal
of carillons from York Minster
fill the afternoon Anglican air,
lift over the River Ouse,
resound over the Yorkshire Hills
that strain to hear the metal tongue,
the sound, the Word, the
bells.

My ears have heard the lilt
of Irish fiddlers
sitting fireside
in an old Cork pub,
their notes drifting over
the reverent chatter, the clatter
of endless Guinness pints
with their tides
in.

My ears have heard the music
of trains elevated over The Bronx,
their thump-thump drumming over
Third Avenue, near Fordham
and Webster—teeming with shops
and shoppers singing out
in their own native tongues
their own ear-sweet
songs.

Seeing / Finding More

My eyes have seen the obsidian eyes
of Pharaoh Tutankhamun—his death mask,
his funerary ephemera, unearthed
from centuries of dust, transported
on the wings of Horus, with Amun’s prayer,
to this New World, to the largest
museum in the Western
world.

My eyes have watched the roll
of Catskill mountains fold
over each other, into themselves,
over the Ashokan Basin, over
the lost cities, water-logged
by the Esopus; rooftops,
streets, steeples, general stores,
now a reservoir of flooded
memories.

My eyes have strained in the darkness
of Seattle’s underground—Pioneer Square—
an underworld lost to light, frozen
in Victorian time, a dank maze
of tunnels; all the while footsteps,
unknowing, step overhead,
over this city abandoned,
ruined.

Sensing / Discovering More

My mind has sensed two states of mind,
lying down in Queens I have been
hypnotized, past-life regressed, and sensed
two selves: one remaining recumbent
in Sunnyside while the other, my
astral self, shifts through space
and time—to Bethlehem’s ‘Abba Way,’
to my son ‘Tito’ in Renaissance Venice,
to 18th century rural England where
I am ‘Prudence.’

My mind has sensed the presence
of ghost-glimmers slipping past
the corner of my eye, barely
registering but a passing feeling
that something out of the shadows
has moved—and moves on—away
from the distracting minutia
of my day.

My mind has sensed in dream,
on a Brechtain-bare stage,
coming out of the mist, a stream
of unfamiliar faces lined up—
each one telling me they are
my ancestor, that I will be safe
from the unnamable thing to come;
each kinsmen weeping before
disappearing again, ten days prior to
9/11.

Patrick Hammer is Workshop Leader for the Main Street Poets and Writers who meet in Fort Lee, N. J.  A widely published poet in small literary magazines, he is also the co-facilitator of The Wild Angels who meet at the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine in Manhattan.