Dane Hamann
Q&A
[based on the poems in Life on Mars by Tracy K. Smith]
Question: who understands
the blessings of the body?
The blind, dancing around
with a fistful of ocean.
Swaying across the rocks
as if they were open minefields?
Or gassing about
like runaway gods.
So those who are ageless
are also honeyed and gnarled?
In theory they are everything,
the heat of all moments.
Like a conflagration of hours?
Yes, marvelous and deathless.
With what fury
do their footsteps burn?
As if a whole country
unfurls into the sea.
What will they find
in that molten bedlam?
A frenzy of galaxies
smiling in the darkness.
Do they dare sink
into that weightless universe?
There is proof such surprises
dwindle day by day.
Q&A
[based on the poems in The City, Our City by Wayne Miller]
Question: who exists
in the City?
The whispered, the buoyant,
the painted, the abandoned.
How will we remember
such strangers?
With gunbarrel superstitions
and a tangle of abstractions.
Are they occupiers, like bullets
wandering inside our walls?
No, artists of a silent language,
a dialect of fire.
Where can we find
their scrawling words?
In the neon of boulevards
and the sparks of subways.
Their voices are the music
of jittering light?
Their voices are the City
unraveling in the wind.
How can we preserve something
so futureless?
By being blessed with the same
luminous damage.
What toast should we say
to the fervorous newcomers?
To art, to revolution,
to beautiful alchemy.
Q&A
[based on the poems in Fancy Beasts by Alex Lemon]
Question: how does interpreting dreams
clean us of cruelty?
We become fire,
grinning and ready for more.
So we upflame headfirst
like a sweet, holy shock?
Yes, like brass knuckles
punching zigzags through the air.
What stops our chainsawing climb
into moonlight?
Nothing but the horrible mouth
of day.
Is it within us to love
the feverish grip of night?
The secret is jabbering hearts
of tar, honey, and mercury.
And for the heart filled
with extraordinary emptiness?
Neuroses, or the grace
of endless light and wind.
How do we finally welcome
the milky-wayed midnight?
Gnashing painkillers,
drowning in an orchestra of bones.
Are we deserving of such an avalanche
unfolding inside our bodies?
Believe me,
it doesn’t really fucking matter.
--
Dane Hamann works as an editor for a textbook publisher in the southwest suburbs of Chicago. He received his MFA in Creative Writing from Northwestern University, where he currently serves as the poetry editor of TriQuarterly.