[Poetry] Four Poems by Alex Hamrick

POETRY - ISSUE FOUR

Fuck King Tut

ALEX HAMRICK

I am hit by a car and killed. It is not a quick or painless death. I lay on my back in the middle of the street unable to move, slowly drowning in my own blood. You stand over my body holding a framed photograph of King Tut and explain that this is my just punishment for failing to understand your joke. I am crying silently as you begin to coat my face in gold leaf. Later, in an exclusive interview for People That Have Disregarded All Responsibility For Their Words and Actions Through A Complete Denial Of Reason As Being A Foundation Upon Which To Root Their Own Person, you will talk about how beautiful it was; how gold leaf really looks more like bronze when it is coated in blood; how the light from the street lamps caught the surface of it all in just the right way.

Thanksgiving

I am at the grocery store with my father. We have a package of fettuccine pasta, a tub of basil pesto, and a bottle of reasonably priced red wine when he asks me if there is anything else that I need. I tell him no, because you can’t buy intuitive solutions for pain at a grocery store, and because I can honestly say that I’ve never seen a 10 oz. cardstock box with a three color machine printed label that says Clever Ways To Elude Important Questions That You Are Afraid Of Answering By Instead Addressing The Perceived Underlying Structures Behind Their Asking ever lining the shelves next to bandages, pre-inflated balloons made of reflective metallic plastic, or generic greeting cards posturing as unique and intimate moments to stand in place of your ability to succinctly and accurately inform someone of your feelings.

Failing To Harness Mediocrity As A Creative Endeavor By Poorly Mimicking A Failed Attempt At Harnessing Mediocrity As A Creative Endeavor

I bought a book of poems by a single author from a small publisher via their website and sat down on my floor a week after it showed up in my mailbox and read it, but was not very impressed. I got up and walked to the corner store to buy cigarettes and started typing an inspired text message to myself as I went because I didn’t have paper or anything to write with, but couldn’t finish my train of thought before I got there. After I had bought what I had gone to buy I could not reclaim the original idea I had been intent on driving towards, so that my body of writing was instead turned into a not very long but long enough build up to a hopelessly lackluster conclusion devoid of any purpose, which I then edited several times.

The Same Pain

I look at all the people walking around me with their coffees and their shopping bags and decide to curl into a ball right here in public, almost exactly in the middle of the sidewalk. A lot of them stop all at once and kneel next to me and place their hands palm down on parts of my body that are generally considered non-threatening fora stranger to touch. Are you ok? They all need to know, but I don’t have the words to tell them how this pain is somehow the same pain as before, except that it hasn’t come from the decision to love. They all start to cry. Why did you even come here?