Mark Hammerschick - Four Poems

Pandemia

Coagulation, strangulation seethes
crumbs gather and explode
skating on thin ice
brittle, sharded jagged points of paralysis
too many eyes to apologize for.
Gasping to breathe, muscles introduce themselves
as crocodiles dressed like clowns
clinging to the edge of a dry martini
shaken not stirred
like my brain boiling in Bogota
olives optional.
Waste not want not in a wasted land
where spittle spits spontaneously putridly
in silver chalices of boreal shit
bleeding from the alter of
Our Lady of Perpetual Pulp
sleeves of translucent flesh
suffocatingly sacrificial
lamb of my calf
stretched on wires barbed blue
skin coils rattlesnake shake rattle roll
a room converges in the callous turquoise amber
flatline fizz
a flurry of blues
and then nothing…

In the Moment before the Moment of Relative Uncertainty

In the moment before the moment
of paper clip expansion
defying Heisenbergian dimensions
the uncertainty of possibility
hampers my ability to measure arbitrary certainty
losing myself in electron eccentricity.
Position and momentum collide
inside a crowded mind
lost in columns of clouded light
leaning with the residue of dark matter
in my bowl of corn flakes
how simple speeds of light may seem
as we careen limitlessly
into butterfly shafts
your eyes
rise like little sighs
calmness, serenity, being in the now
knowing the present of relative theory means
anything having energy exhibits a corresponding mass
how a me and a you
can repel and attract
skinning thighs as we surmise
why the why
and what the what
of carnal demise, descent into depths
unknown, deep in caves
layered sticky sweet
and again those eyes
black holes
event horizons cauterized by your cries
to let me go, set me free so yes I shall
slash the lines, cut the chord of your gravity
to allow my free fall of inertial motion
into curved space time
beyond those sighs we shared
hollow laughs and callous cries
in the dark
tangled together like varicose veins
bulbous, pulsing, pumping
into the knowing of the unknown
as we separate
and I become a one dimensional casualty
the lone graviton
lost in the lie of myself. 

Let My People Go

Let my people go.
The time is upon us
to consider parallel congruity
leavening bread on the run
stuffing cotton in bales
stretched taut like ragged mahogany hides
in jagged shafts of rusted shackles.
Go, go tell it on the mountain
they will not be judged
by the color of their skin
but by the content of their character.
Go down Moses
down below where baptism rivers flow
low, low, low
in a Mississippi flow.
Where did the dream defer to?
Why is it that good fences make good neighbors?
Black and white
White and black
Stark, Dark, Sharp
with desiccated remnants
of days lived in neighborhoods
where even spiders did no go.
Flags, flags, everywhere flags
thirteen stars
with nowhere to go
yet go they do, on and on and on…
until a photon struck
and the light emerged and the dream was born again
rising on up, rise, rise up
Ezekial has his wheel
amazing graces all around
and in the end
those dreams collide
merge, mingle, and mold
jello memories of family
folded into the strands of time.
Now is the Time
Now is the Yes
Now the truth
Now the love

  
The Philosophy of Light

Corners cannot keep it sublime
for it supports the pillars of time.
Resonant as a Bach fugue
uncertain of its velocity in an eye of white
rummaging through alleys of quasars
it pulses, palpitates, protrudes indefinitely
into your eyes beyond reason and rhyme
succulent as purple plums and sweaty inner thighs.

Carpe Diem compadre.
Only light can seize itself…and love.
How our paths, less travelled
meet in the labyrinth of your lips.
How we lose ourselves in the silence,
errant quarks colliding in concentric circles.
If we were mirrors we would reflect each other
entwined within infinite strands of light.

Mark writes poetry and fiction. He holds a BA in English from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana and a BS and MBA. He is a lifelong resident of the Chicago area and currently lives on the north shore.His current work will be published in The Metaworker, Vext Magazine, Breadcrumbs Magazine, Meat for Tea: The Valley Review, Lucky Jefferson, The Fictional Café, Wingless Dreamer, HP 2020 Poetry Challenge, Scarlet Leaf Review,  Blood and Thunder: Musings on the Art of Medicine and North Dakota Quarterly.