hammer


I sleep with a hammer. It lies underneath a
memory foam pillow. The head of the hammer
has never touched a nail. It was purchased by
my uncle to hang pictures in my grandmother’s
apartment. My grandmother, a Staff Sergeant
of the United States Marine Corp during WWII,
was so overcome by Alzheimer’s Disease that she
attacked me with a skillet while we were watching
the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. I stole the
hammer so I could bash in the skull of AD when it
came for me, which I was convinced was going to
happen before I turned 45. I was 8 years of age
when I watched the actress Brenda Vaccaro on a
second season episode of the TV medical drama,
“St. Elsewhere”, portray a housewife in her mid-40s,
she and her loving family shattered by her diagnosis
of early onset AD. I should’ve been sleeping, but
I had a nightmare about stalactites. My uncle said,
“We’ll just keep the hammer here, I don’t need it.”
Anyone would’ve stolen that hammer as the act of
a conscientious grandchild. I’ve taken the hammer
to new homes, and I’ve never given it a proper name.
I’ve dreamed about the hammer talking to me with
a voice like a rock slide, inverting meaningless
sentences: “Don’t go with the flow, go with the wolf”
“Don’t find your tao, find your oat”, then striking me
repeatedly until the call of morning the calls of my
father asking:

WHEN ARE YOU GETTING UP WE’RE ALL
GOING TO GREAT ADVENTURE WHEN ARE
YOU GETTING UP YOU HAVE TO SUB FOR
MISTER LESSER AT THE HIGH SCHOOL WHEN
ARE YOU GETTING UP JESUS CHRIST THE DAY
IS RUNNING AWAY FROM YOU I’D RUN TOO

The hammer sleeps all day.
It never gets out of bed.
It never wakes but turns,
pounding its fists into the mattress,
dreaming of a nail, fighting itself.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

summary of a critical scene in "The Savage Bees" (1976)

On Ash Wednesday in New Orleans , a silver knight rides the hood of a slowly-moving red Volkswagen, retaining his poise with a firm handle on a windshield wiper, a box containing the New Queen Bee nestled in his other arm, driving towards a hot dog stand where the Savage Bees are swarming. the knight tells the driver to shut the windows, close the vents, and keep in constant walkie-talkie chatter with the assistant medical examiner. he slowly approaches the hot dog stand, and he becomes ketchup. two intoxicated Mardi Gras pirates cannot curb their hunger, racing through the sheriff’s roadblock in their yellow convertible, driving into the swarm, becoming mustard. the driver’s anguish attracts the bees, and the Bug becomes a hive. she drives to the Superdome, and the swarm acquiesces to the air conditioning. fun fact: the silver knight was one of the Magnificent Seven.
Read more

the shoulders of the heart

this poem will never be finished her grace, gentle to calm an outstretched and anxious palm, quiets all storm of memory, her own tide awash a melody of opaque recognition that, by definition, is a hazy spell no slumber can break, no number of make-believe apparitions, to wrap her heart in such toughness as to clear the lane of her progress from debris, her grace unto me is the pinpoint of light that steadies and readies my own night as it descends and unbends, her grace, gentle and calm.
Read more

AWOL

the chapters are prolonged the proofreading adumbrated I often cleaned the birthday cake knife I did my best (but you needed x-ray glasses to notice) Madame Curie,   play your defensible metaphors be immodest be Picasso be the other Frozen movie, trapped on a ski lift above the undying Sonny Liston is not getting up Sonny Liston is staying down the speakerphone has increased both the divorce rate and the amputation rate anyone who touches a decent girl buys the farm. the melody modulates the mob we all fail at geometry (ego, try me). why does the Angel of Death wear so much make-up just to watch a Packers game? you don’t expect Willem Dafoe. you never expect Willem Dafoe, and I don’t accept Willem Dafoe as a guest of Kelly& Ryan, more like the sly diabetic mastermind taking hostage the show, the slyer producer in the wings thinking: spin-off. hey…yellow aurora… how are you, really ?
Read more