sharks don't sleep

the world went as quiet
as a self-
conscious
woman
shitting.

usually
I can hear;
the gravel dancing in my neighbors' sinuses
as they snore like bears who've shied into the dark,
only to feed a cave's need to breed echo,

the bums raspy mumbled bickering as they strut by dropping bottles
that either break or clink into the cluttered gutters,

or the train that passes promptly at 1:27AM every night.

not tonight; tonight
it looks like rain,
and sounds like nothing

but death,
the muted rumble
of black
plotting,
and pins
crying silently
from sewing kits
for their chance
to sing
against
marble tile
or hardwood.

I can almost hear
the subtle expanse
of my generous ribcage
as it budges to free
the bloating of my lungs
recycling oxygen,

yoinked

into the dying fire
of tired.

as I lay like
easy prey
to the glistening fangs
of sleep,

the gods make
their final cuts
on an inde-
pendent
film reel

of dreams
that will bruise
behind my
eyelids.

- Eric Hamilton

(added 05.04.09)

yes, you.

before bed, as I lay
cloaked in dark
and the day becomes
less important,
I think of
a great
many things;

the cars I hear passing
and the faces of late night
travelers, splashed with
each others scattered
head-lights,

the cargo in graffiti-
smothered freight trains
that click clack and moan-
through night.

the people I love who
understand me enough
to love me,

the people I love who
understand me enough
to hate me.

my old sneakers
dangling from power-
lines in the slums of
Las Vegas,
Los Angeles,
and Hackensack.

the glimmer in that man's
eyes as he shot me five
times and the sound of
policemen splash-
stepping in my blood,

my manuscripts and selected
poems running through publishers'
paper-
shredders
as they sit legs crossed
sipping their coffee.

syringes and beer bottles
floating in the Hudson River,

bums at bonfires keeping warm
beneath the Brooklyn Bridge.

the whores that just know
I'm somewhere writing about them,

Rilke, Neruda, Levy, Poe'
Whitman, Bukowski, Thompson
all in their caskets
and Salinger
shopping
for his.

crackheads in the laundry rooms
of project apartment buildings
scraping their pipes.

the fearful face of the boy
who stabbed me in the chest
and the way the world looked
through the sun-roof
of a honda civic as it flipped
into the drainage canal.

the look on my father's face
when I was 7 years old
and set his house on fire,

how king of the world cool
he looked sitting at the dinner-
table smoking and reading
the books I've grown to love,

and the look on my mother's
face when I was 10 years old
and set her house on fire.

my old elementary-
school teachers
the little girls
I learned about love with,

a few ex-girlfriends smoking
weed in nothing but my t-shirt.

my old apartments and who's
living in them now,

my old cars and who's
driving them now.

my brother and his wife
peacefully asleep,
my brother and his mistress
peacefully asleep,
my brother alone in bed
peacefully asleep.

the gods combing their
beards and smiling down
on me,

and my guardian angel
sitting some-where extremely
bored, begging me to
live recklessly again.

the gutters flowing
with rain I've danced in,

drinking buddies,
smoking buddies,
people I shot dope with,

cellmates, prison guards
and correctional officers,

cats and dogs
that were better friends
than human-
beings could
ever be,

the disoriented
birds who chirped
at night because
the lights were on,

and every once in a while
I think of you.

- Eric Hamilton

(featured in the poetry forum 05.04.09)

Floaties

as a child,
I wanted to be like houdini.

not the 80's rap group,
that's 'whodini,'

I'm refering to;

the escape artist,
the genius,
formerly 'Ehrich Weiss,'

that houdini.

I used to go swimming alone,
and put those orange floaties on my ankles
before getting into the pool,

which would cause my legs
to float
above
my head.

arms flailing,
I would desperately
try
to keep my head above water,

but the moment I stopped paddling
with every bit of my strength,
I would swing back under,
feet to the sky,
drowning.

needless to say,
apart from flirting with death,
I am nothing like houdini,

though I've spent my whole life
trying to keep my head above water

in a similar struggle.

- Eric Hamilton

(added 04.22.09)

the single pink glove.

as I lay
living
(which if
I'm not mistaken
is the purpose
of life)

I need not
delve deep
into the
breeze blown
catacombs
of my mind
for the answers
I'm after,

I merely
fall back
on all of
the
simple
glory
just
behind
me,

today;
I wore the
single pink glove
I'd found abandoned
in my laundry basket,

held a beautiful
woman in my arms
almost gracefully
sucking face
in a church
hallway,

freestyled
spoken-word
poetic psycho-
babble at a
narcotics
anonymous
meeting,

did a great
deal of walking
through the snow,

took an uninterrupted nap
while my room cleaned itself,

ate a strange dish
of vietnamese food
provided by a friend's
all too nurturing fiance'

smoked
a pack
(and a
half)
of cigarettes,

read a letter from
australia,
another from
christiansburg,
wrote one
to fryburg,

and am
unwinding
now

for a sleep that is yet
to climb through my window
and rip
this pen
from my hand,

as I stare out
into the stretch
of night,

and call the sun
a coward.

- Eric Hamilton

(featured in the poetry forum 04.22.09)

insomniacs don't pay for it.

sleep is a
one-legged
whore

who charges by
the thousands.

I'm the last-
resort who can't
afford her,

but every
'couple days
she crawls
into bed
with me,

broke,
with no where
(else)
to go.

so I hold her
close, true,
like no other man has,

and when
I wake up,
she is gone.

- Eric Hamilton

(added 04.22.09)