MARK HAMMER - POEMS

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, most of his professional career has been focused on digital strategy and online consulting as a solution architect and digital transformation strategist. 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 and North Dakota Quarterly.

Wanting to be Whole
​

​So, I still wonder what happens to my dreams.
Not like raisins
but more like watermelons in the field
with a milky, weary sun lost in itself
rummaging through dusty old photos
packed with the anticipation
of faces that can sense a future
lived large in fading shadows,
but those shadows shift
ominously into that white lady of her heart
reading those letters and knowing
that a life really is that kitten in a sack
scratching to get out into the light
but we know the implications
of being in the sack, in the dark
the not knowing, the infinite anxiety…
and then, once we understand the exploding raisins
we realize
that love is the whole and more than all
it really is, it really is,
we stumble into hearts
worn weary by the burden of living
knowing that in that experience
we can only skim the gravity of love
the two ones
desperately wanting
to be whole.

Womb Water
​

​Morning’s syrup sweet
clings desperately
succulently loose on frayed blades of grass
weary with the burden of moisture
vacant strands seek closure
as an expanding sun
sears pellets of light
lost in the future of its past
beyond the event horizon
where no light can emanate
manipulate or strangulate
like your eyes caked
with dried residue
of pasts without the knowledge of the now
how in knowing we lose sight
of that which defines us
each another frayed blade
waiting for rain
for the womb water
to envelop us once again
as we swim deep into
a future
not known
but anticipated
yet still we go
 

And Then There Were Flags
​

​Roads not travelled
have an irritating tendency
to appear spontaneously bereft of substance.
 
How we dream of lives deferred
of moments congealed in slick surfaces
thinking…what if…why not.
 
Yet we jest armed with lancets
that pierce unprotected parts
repeatedly, brutally in the Gulag.
 
And then there were flags
everywhere all at once
suffocating our rage.
 
 

A Poem Is
​

​A
poem
is
 
All
it needs
are words
 
Meanings
are
optional
 
Form
is
flattery
 
A
poem
need not
be minimal
 
It
is
what
it
is
 
Even
if only a strand
or
a woven rug
it binds us
 
Words
are the fabric
of our fantasy
 

Black Hole
​

​Light
opacity
elegance beyond
limits
distances covered
humbled by
relativity
how it feels
how it moves
how it eludes touch
yet exudes permanence
velocity
neither oblong nor sphere
nor too severe
yet it can absorb
infinity
in its grasp
it’s tiny hands
folding in
tombward twilight
then silent night
forever…