five poems

by Blair Hamelink

De-Humanized

Walking into the ward for the miscellany,

under an arch of hierarchic fruit

I took a bite of rust

& watched my blasphemy shudder

in my tunneled sight

my induction…

O, I was quite secure,

gripping my knees & hunched.

I proclaimed my instincts another’s

bleeding into a two-bit drowse

my illness was seen,

it was such a childish exposé.

Inside my mind,

the chimps of Shakespearean Law

were dragged

for being too persistent.

I wondered: would this backbone

someday

suddenly jeer

to the bop of dandies?

The albatross outside my window

moved with cinematic gesture

urging me to sleep—sleep, o’ sleep

how dare you tease me like that.

I took a long hard look at myself,

my sense of humor was caged.

I wondered: is my reflection

inhumane, or am I

the next casualty, of gallant nerve,

with an inhospitable

stench of moods,

a frown of martyrdom.

Of all the sirs, of all the

pill-headed stoics,

fraternizing in Plato’s cave,

I’m glad I’m not me.

In the mirror,

my imagination stared back at me

muscled me down to my knees

crazy how the soft dust floats

crazy how

loud isolation is.

I drew my weapon, there was a noise,

there were fluorescent distractions,

the liquor store,

far off in the distance.

I drew my weapon, I wrote:

The King is Dead… may he

return a Queen

& pearl this linoleum hallway

I’ll sleep when I’m dead, when I’m dead…

I suppose that immortality

got its bad rep

when the rolling stone blundered

down irksome gradients of the noumenal.

There was a noise, there were

rattlings of drugs at my door.

Inside my mind, coddled by

disquietude, I clench my

birth-given right

to be strange.

Self-Portrait as an Elementary State of Temerity

When my quietness was put on trial

for the crime of inaction, I was jostled by that claim

—the case of action v. inaction had tugged on the reins

of my mind for far too long. A gun was pressed

against my back

& I succumbed

the light that curtails over my eyes is amber

this governing body is still, the half-moon

is just out of frame

            I keep my shrill to myself, I hold it

close to my chest; I laid out my life in typeset,

the meaning behind the gun,

banged

                                    the philosophic sea-wave,

minced itself

someone walked beside me & said:

the colony of gulls above

is not the saving grace you think it is

still I rise like a priest, holding my torn parachute

speaking in semi-quavers from a semi-open mouth

I got stuck on the Dante-elevator & just grooved to the alarm

like a tree in the forest, I fell to the slide of trombones

—but nobody was there to hear… only seas that ambush

my brain-mush; only sins that protrude

in the sinuous folds of my forehead

usually, I tilt my own head at such bi-folds,

what a hypocrite I am

my memory holds the gun: I sit in the puddling cause

& ask my inner-Bartleby to grant me a boon—

I remember dusting off my tracksuit

the voyeurist-sky beheld: one giant ripple 

it seemed to me that: me & my predecessors

were just

eerie identities

peppered with spontaneity

            at the ceremony, we all three had a hunch,

silently querying our own abolition

& I was duped, standing on the tips

of my dribbling toes

            I piled the oranges of Hieronymus Bosch

around my habitation & I saw

the blurred tones

crazily waft

when the sea-waves spoke my name, I was

watery-eyed, saddened by the ploy that called to me:

not flowers dead,

but my eclectic salts

            that raw glimpse of the self

was somewhat tolerable

I shot my only shot & was freaked,

the crucible was far-out

a gong in the fog & I still couldn’t believe it…

a Yankee-Doodle took me by the wrist

& led me to the garden of mothers, who

swatted the Brutus flies & blabbed to me about the supreme

prophet’s bum hip—they all had their own hospital wings

dedicated to eternal fledge

at the Public Library, Benjamin Franklin came up to me

said: “does it look like we’re getting anywhere with this?”

I said:    “you must be putting me on”

            & like a good boy, I rolled up my sleeves

syllable by syllable, I collected myself

sums of gentleness & tact,

like bullets.

Especially When Van Gogh’s Ear

my imagination is in trouble

there’s a mold of me on the rooftops

I’m a slab of Dutch jest,

                        a purseful of war

another jubilee

is going on in the brain

I hear a tickling from the bastardized voice 

& the windmill of my rot

blows upon my hair

it seems, I’ve gone public

priest of the milkyway, Vincent:

I’m your man

I was your loser-paddler,

            I suffered a massive stroke

& buried my art

deep in your lagoons

my borrowed passport, doodled with

American cartoons, is damp

this eternity is policed by marine-blue

& violet

especially with this mortal wine in my mouth

especially when your ear landed in my lap

& you heard me, gingerly weep

back in Holland, strumming my

                        mouth guitar, gone down the

cobbled flats

            I went down to the corner store

                        & returned with pamphlets

                        for the Loose-Screw Synagogue

            (was dealt once more,

             with a knot in the throat)

in fear of my own voice, I bandaged

my ears, sloppy in my portrait

I saw trouble, I saw the two faces of Vincent:

the one brilliant magician

& the one darkly hidden rupture

            with the tongue that poked

            at the ones who didn’t

                        know his name

I’m on the balcony of the broken tower

the universe looks like soot to me

Pluto is being auctioned off at daybreak

            I’m earless, counting illnesses

I counted enough cancers to fill a continent

enough wine corks to keep away the flood

I was heaving with prescription, light enough

to drift down to the pharmacy

& receive

my next box of ears,

postmarked:

conscience is a compass.

Displaced

& so, there stands solitude, fondling my head.

At the time there was nothing to beat it down with.

I was the sea’s concierge, the pimped voice,

cracked. When the laughing ring of seals

baited me, I put my cigar out, tossed my

watered tonic back in the sea.

I heard a mooted song. I heard the bells say,

they’re kaput. The thought of a lasting bliss

wasn’t as cringe as saying it out loud. I asked

the preacher if I could get a second opinion.

I wanted something not so dependent on

cantankery, spleneticism… maybe something

with fewer k’s & t’s, s’s & p’s. The poet knows

not to take her guns to town. There’s a sign

on the wall there: wanted: someone to drift with,

it is unsigned. But, if you look carefully,

you can tell by their penmanship, they were

out of their heads. So there stands solitude, fondling

me again. I’m out here holding this wishbone

& fiddling around in my pockets for another

decree—nihilism was the nothing that

got me nothing. Everything was too much.

The lost boys wrote me; accepted me. I squinted

my way thru that letter. I myself am a blur.

The Ingrown Years

I took a handful of dust away from my dead mother

& watched, wondered, how we stand here, prematurely

bequeathed with dement. I was busily reading foot-

prints, when I fell into that scarlet kind of memory.

The revelation was: it’s never too late to join the hustle.

For instance, I switched sides half-way thru the war

& thought of investing in a life of pleasure, where I

can be as sloppy as I want to be… I can fill up on

wine & make my speech, centerstage, where I’m

inward-facing, nearly there, nearly full of knowledge,

but, still thinking about the reach. I knocked

on the antagonist’s door: five quick knocks

I expected the opening face to be another tease

in red silk dress. But it wasn’t. So, I took that envelope

out of my breast pocket & scattered that hush-money.

Now, the first problem I’d like to address is:

how to grow old, while there’s still dust on my

hands. I took a handful of desire away from

my mind—paced up & down the dreamworld.

Then, on Broadway, the marque read: Bye Bye

Birdie—my duty, as I understood it, was to flee

in style: do the old soft shoe, et cetera, et cetera.

But all the while, I’m low on ambition & there’s

nothing I’d like more but to lounge in darkness.

Photo of Blair Hamelink

BIO: Blair Hamelink is a poet from Dunedin, New Zealand. He has lived in the United States for 15 years where he works as a skydiving instructor. Blair has a BA in English literature from Southern New Hampshire University and an MFA in creative writing and poetics from Naropa University. He is the author of the poetry books, Ill Weathers & Other Fates (Quillkeepers Press, 2024), Sky-Mammals (Dark-Vowelled Birds, LLC, 2024), and most recently, In Pursuit of Liberty & Fledge (Jack Wild Publishing, 2025). He currently resides in Colorado.