Barbara Hamby: Ode to Skimpy Clothes and August in the Deep South
A young woman is walking with her boyfriend, and it’s deep
summer in the South, like being in a sauna
but hotter and stickier
Barbara Hamby: Ode to Knots, Noise, Waking Up at Three, and Falling Asleep Reading to My Id
Why does everything seems so impossible
in the middle of the night? I wake up at three
with my mind in a knot
Barbara Hamby: How to Pray
Falling down on your knees is the easy part, like drinking
a glass of cold water on a hot day, the parched straw
of your throat flooded, your knees hitting the ground,
a prizefighter in the final rounds.
Barbara Hamby: Ode on Killing Sadness
the emcee said at the start
of the evening, “Here we are killing
sadness,” and the music did take the sting
out of the night
Barbara Hamby: Ode to My Younger Self
You were so beautiful and stupid though you thought
you were smart, and in a way you were,
because you loved poetry and Beethoven and apples
Barbara Hamby: Ode to the Sacred Heart of Everyone, Including You and You and You
Hey, Catholics, what is it with that red heart out there
beating on Jesus’ chest like some Frankenstein
experiment gone bad
Barbara Hamby: Ode on Anger, the Dalai Lama, and Elliot’s Red Boots
aren’t we more like pack mules
than gods most days, picking our way
across the desert or up a mountain path with avalanches
and the heaviest loads are our grudges and fears
Barbara Hamby: Athena Ode
Road diva, divine mixologist, cancan dancer
of the mandible wars, show me the way of mind
over what’s-the-matter-with-you, girl, swirling from mouths
of righteous dudes.
Barbara Hamby: St. Clare’s Underwear
there’s your average man, hirsute and raging with testosterone,
Godzilla incarnato, King Kong with big feet, Frankenstein
hovering over some delectable damsel with skin like fresh pastry
Barbara Hamby: Ode on Words for Parties (American Edition)
Why do we have so many words for parties, a slew
of them once you start looking: shindig, bash,
meet-and-greets, raves, blowouts, barbecues,
and more tepid functions, receptions, luncheons
Barbara Hamby: Ode to Anglo Saxon, Film Noir, and the Hundred Thousand Anxieties That Plague Me Like Demons in a Medieval Christian Allegory
Yo, Viking dudes, who knew your big-dog cock-of-the-walk
raping and pillaging would put us all here, right smack
dab in the middle of a decade filled with the stink
of war.
Barbara Hamby: Mambo Cadillac
I’m talking to you, Mr. Magoo. Sit up, check
out that blonde with the leopard print tattoo. O she’ll lick
the sugar right off your doughnut and bill you, too, speak
French while she do the do.
Michael Simms: Rhythm Benders | The Musicality of American Poetry
A poem is rooted in the rhythms of pulse, breath and movement.
Barbara Hamby: New Orleans Dithyramb
And Satan said unto the Lord, “You have your work
and I have mine, but there is no sin the world
cannot hold,” and the Lord, he laughed himself a big one
